My Salad Days of Fiction Writing
This is not the first short story I ever wrote, but it’s the earliest one that survives.
This is a transcript (very lightly edited) of a story I typed on the Royal manual typewriter that had been my mother’s and that she gave me when I was a child. In the upper right corner of the first page is written, in what appears to be green felt tip marker, “Summer 1979.” I was 18 years old; had graduated from John Dewey High School in the spring; was starting Columbia University in the fall.
I was reading a lot of Hemingway at the time, but I think my influences also included Neil Simon and soap operas, among other things. I think this is to some extent my take on a couple of Hemingway short stories, one of which I refer to not-so-obliquely towards the end (bonus points if you catch that reference).
This is the sort of thing I wanted to share with you all when I started this Substack. But it has taken me a while to get around to transcribing it. It’s not the first short story I ever wrote, but it’s the earliest one that survives.
The New Mrs. Burns
“Wonderful, Danny dear. I can’t wait to see you. “ She hung up the phone. She had already gotten dressed, but she went into their bedroom to get something from her jewelry box to wear around her neck. She closed the lights, locked the door, and was on her way.
Dan was finally back from his business trip, but he was not coming home. Ruth was taking the car into the city to meet him for dinner. It was his idea, and she didn’t really like it. She had been home all afternoon preparing the most wonderful dinner for his arrival. As for the ride into the city, as long as she had been married Ruth had not felt right in the driver’s seat. But she would feel just fine when she finally told Dan she was having a baby.
The city seemed new. Everything felt like she was doing it for the first time. It had been that way all week, from the moment she had heard from the doctor. The restaurant is beautiful, Ruth thought, but way too expensive. She resolved to force the worries out of her mind. Tonight she would be romantic, as Dan must want, indulging with him in this minor extravagance. She would be a wife, and she would be a mother. Tonight she would do everything.
“Are you alone, Miss?”
“No, excuse me,” Ruth said, needlessly apologetic to the smiling waiter who stood at her shoulder. “I’m meeting my husband.”
“Maybe he’s here already. Do you have a reservation? What’s your husband’s name?”
“Burns. Yes, I’m Mrs. Burns. We have a reservation for two at eight-thirty.”
“Fine. He’s been waiting for you. Right this way.”
Dan looked uncomfortable too, and he jumped from his seat when she came to the table, but he was so handsome anyway, and so sweet, and he would make such a good father. She hoped he would feel better now that they were together.
“Yes, thank you. I’ll have a Scotch and soda, too, but hold the Scotch.” The waiter smiled and went away. Dan had his drink already. “Oh, Danny, that’s a martini, isn’t it? Maybe I’m at the wrong table.” She laughed sweetly and happily. “My husband always drinks Scotch and soda with me. He never drinks martinis.”
“He does,” Dan said in a strange, out of place, oddly firm way. “I started on the trip.”
“Was it nice?”
“It’s different. Smoother. You have to drink it more slowly.”
“No, silly. I know what a martini is. I meant your trip.”
“The trip was very successful. We took care of everything we set out to do.” He was not perspiring yet.
“Good, dear. I’m glad everything went off—” she was interrupted.
“As planned? Well, there’s always bound to be a few surprises. Maybe surprise is a bad choice of words. But everything works out in the end. There’s nothing that can’t be dealt with.”
Ruth thought of her own special surprise, and that made her smile, and she thought that Dan noticed, but it seemed to affect him oddly.
“I’ve been spending a lot more time out there this year, Ruth. I’ve been seeing a lot of, well, certain people.”
“Anybody nice? Worth talking about? Keeping in touch with, I mean.” She could already imagine dear new friends in another state, and visits to warm new places with their new little child.
The manager of the restaurant approached the waiter who had seated Mrs. Burns as he was carrying a tray of drinks from the bar. “Rick, the couple at table eight, did you forget them?”
“No, Chief. The fellow told me to give them a little time before I go over for their order. He looks pretty worried. I wonder what he did.”
“I wonder who he did it with.”
Dan was finishing his drink. “What I mean,” he said, “is that, well, do you ever think how young we were when we started out?”
Yes, Ruth thought, this is just the time to tell him. It’s just what he needs to hear. He must have felt so alone all week, going to business meetings with much older men, and having to act so aggressive and in control, and he really is such a tender, generous dear.
“I went to the doctor the day you left, Dan.”
“The doctor? Everything is okay, isn’t it?”
The waiter came by and they ordered dinner. Ruth thought about asking the waiter to chill a bottle of champagne but decided against it. She had bought a bottle in the morning, and she would open it when they got home. Dan would sip his champagne, and she would wave her glass in the direction of the spare room that would become the nursery before pouring it down the sink, and they would both laugh at how clever she was.
“You are all right, aren’t you?” Dan persisted.
“I’m fine. I’ve never been better in fact.” It was coming.
“Good, good. I was worried there for a minute. Let’s not change the subject, though. I mean, I want to hear about you, but really, I was just about to say something that...I want to, um...say.”
This is so naughty, Ruth thought. But he is making this so excruciatingly wonderful. If he only knew. “Don’t mind it, Danny dear. I’ve been waiting all week to hear what you have to say.”
“No, Ruth. I don’t think so. I’m sorry. I’m sorry it’s so sudden for you. I’m seeing someone. I love her. I’m in love with another woman.” A waitress walked past with a frosty white cake that had a single candle on top, and she set it down at a large table near Dan and Ruth as the people there began to sing.
“Danny, what do I say?”
“I don’t know, Ruth. I don’t know what either of us says. I hate this. I’ve hated it all along. I hate that I can’t deny how I feel.”
Ruth heard him in the way you hear things and then do not know that anything has been said. Dan kept talking and it did not matter what he said, not even to himself did it matter. It was the same with her own words. She was talking, too, about who, and for how long, and where would he live when he went away, but these were not the things she was thinking.
She was thinking about herself. She was thinking that she was a woman who had loved only one man in her whole life, and that the only thing that made the world matter was that he loved her as well, and now he loved someone else and she had nothing, and she was a woman who for six days had known she was a mother and for six days had known that the baby inside her was the love that she and the man felt for each other and that when it was born they would be able to look at the love and hold it and hug it between them and now he loved someone else and she had nothing, and she was a woman who was carrying a baby whom she loved and looking across the table at a man whom she loved, and if the man did not love her anymore then it was the end of something, but not of the baby. The baby was real, and that was important all by itself, and she was all of these women at once, but then she was only the last woman, and the baby was hers and the man was not hers, and he would probably say he was still hers if she told him about the baby, but he really would not be because he loved someone else, and he would not really want her and he would not really want her baby, but he would say he did because that was the kind of man he was, and that would be a terrible lie for all of them to live with, and if this was the way it was then she could not start the lie by telling him about the baby right now and making him change his decision.
“What do you mean?”
She was still thinking but she was also listening, and she heard Dan ask the question but did not know what he was talking about because she was not aware that she had been saying anything.
“I really am glad you told me,” she said in a shaky voice, “now that you’ve made a decision.”
“What do you mean, about things changing?”
The waiter brought their food. He had not be listening, but he could tell that something bad had happened tonight. He set their plates down quietly, and filled their water glasses, and looked kindly at Mrs. Burns. He did not think they would eat their food.
“What did you mean, about things changing?”
“Did I say that out loud? Oh, Danny, I don’t think I know what I’m saying anymore.” She was crying suddenly, for someone, but she was not sure for whom.
“Ruth, what did you mean?”
“Nothing. Not now. We’ll talk later. Much later. I really am glad you told me first.”
“First?”
“A woman can get so she’s living such a terrible lie.” It will be so hard for him when he finds out, she thought again. He would have made such a wonderful father.