Welcome to the World, Baby Girl!

Two Letters

New York City

1977

Dena arrived home from Howard Kingsley’s memorial service at about twelve-thirty that night and the minute she came in the door she opened a bottle of vodka, put her nightgown on, and drank much of the bottle. At about 4 A.M., drunk as a loon, she got the idea that she would finally tell Ira Wallace what she thought of him. She went to her typewriter, sat down, and started typing.

Dear Scumbag,

How dare you even say all those terrible things about Howard Kingsley. You aren’t fit to wipe his shoes, you scumbag. You think nice people are chumps. You laugh at anybody who has integrity … you belittle everybody, strip everybody of any dignity. If anyone should get respect and be looked up to in this country, you have to throw dirt on them … pull them down in the gutter with you. You don’t care who you hurt. You are not loyal to anyone but yourself … you worm … people are going to learn to hate and suspect each other just like you do and when it’s not safe to go out your front door, what do you care? Don’t forget I know where your money is, you scumbag, tax evader, bald-headed scumbag and I don’t think you are a good American either, you fat buttermilk-pancake-face scumbag. I quit. So long, good-bye, auf Wiedersehen … and good riddance. I don’t know why I ever liked you, you rude cigar-smoking little worm.

Sincerely,

Dena Nordstrom

P.S. Howard was the top.

You’re the bottom!

Dena finished writing at about five-thirty in the morning and felt a great weight off her; she felt free, went to bed, and slept like a baby for the first time in weeks. At around one o’clock that afternoon she woke with a new hangover from hell and a terrible stomachache. She made herself coffee, had Maalox and three aspirins, and read the letter she had typed. What a pile of sanctimonious crap. Who was she to point the finger at anyone? Who did she think she was to imagine herself in the same category with Howard Kingsley? Such a bunch of holier-than-thou, self-righteous drunken babble … Then a wave of panic hit her when she realized she might have gone out and put it in the mail chute. Thank God she hadn’t mailed it. Last night she had been so sure she believed all this stuff, but today she realized all she was doing was spouting off some of Howard’s thoughts. Last night the vodka convinced her that she really believed all she had written. Today she had no earthly idea of what she really thought or felt about anything anymore. Who in the hell was she to judge? Did she really care about anybody but herself? Ira Wallace at least loved his kids and that was more than she could say; at least he loved something. She ripped the letter to shreds and threw it in the wastebasket. A fresh sheet of paper was in the typewriter. She typed a few sentences before she went back to bed with a Valium.

To whom it may concern and to those who don’t give a damn … Who the hell am I? Help! Help! Help! Fireman save my child. Blab blab blab, who cares, who cares, who cares. Leave me alone!!!!!!!!!!!

Across town Gerry O’Malley was leaning over the center-island counter in his kitchen, wearing his red baseball cap, scribbling out another one of the many letters he had started.

Dear Dena,

There are so many things I want to say to you, but mere words are not enough to convey to you what I feel in my heart. I am like a painter who visualizes a beautiful painting full of vivid colors but is only given sticks and mud to work with. I wonder how I can reach you. I don’t want words that skim lightly over the top of what I feel for you. There are too many words that are spoken from the mind and like a roomful of firecrackers pop and are gone. I want words that will produce a long deep boom of explosion, that will jar you to your very bones and stay ringing in your ears forever. That’s how I want to talk to you. I want you to hear me through your skin. I want you to drink my words in like rich red wine, to reach down in every part of you until there is not a place left untouched. I want to be in your bones, your muscles, all the way to the ends of your hair. I want you to know I love you in every cell of your brain, in every sleeping and waking thought. I want it to be in the air you breathe … so with every breath you will know there is someone on this earth that is yours, knows who you are, loves you forever and if there is anything after forever … even after that.

Gerry stopped writing and reread what he had just written and thought: That’s the most sickening, most embarrassing pile of hooey I’ve ever read in my life. And wadded it up and threw it in the trash can along with the others and started a new one.

Dear Dena,

I know this might come as somewhat of a surprise to you but since the first day I saw you I still have not been able to get you out of my

He stopped, tore that up, and said out loud, “God, why don’t you just call her, you idiot!” He went to the phone and dialed her number. But she had unplugged the phone.