Say Goodnight, Gracie Read online

  Dedication

  for my brother, Jeff, who is a little like Jimmy,

  and grandmother, Ethel May Rider,

  and to the memory of my parents, Danny Deaver and Dee Rider Deaver

  My thanks to these writers and professionals who have helped and encouraged me:

  Babette Rosmond

  Treva Silverman

  Nancy Geller

  Contents

  Dedication

  Part One

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Part Two

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Praise

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Part One

  1

  There are friends, I think, we can’t imagine living without. People who are sisters to us, or brothers. Jimmy was one of those. I never thought I might have to go through life without him. I never thought he might be killed by a drunken driver or anything else. Who thinks about things like that when you’re seventeen? If I had known ahead of time what was going to happen to him, I would have gone crazy. I guess I did go a little crazy. My Aunt Lo, who’s a hospital psychiatrist, says grief travels a certain route—that if you could plot it out on a map you’d have a line that twists and weaves and eventually ends up near the point of departure. I say “near” because although you may survive the grief, you won’t ever be exactly the same. It took me a long time to learn that, and sometimes the whole experience comes back on me and I have to learn it all over again.

  “Hey, Morgan,” I remember Jimmy saying. “Watch!” It was the summer we were ten. The summer he discovered Fred Astaire and fell in love with dancing. (In fact, by the time we were fifteen he was as tall and lanky as Astaire and was dancing professionally at the local dinner theater.)

  “Come on,” he’d say. “Dance with me.”

  “I’m reading.” I’d be sitting on the Woolfs’ porch swing, and Jimmy would take the book from me and grab my hands and pull me to my feet. “But I can’t dance,” I’d say.

  “You have to,” Jimmy would answer. “Somebody has to be Ginger Rogers. . . .” He would have memorized one of their routines from an old movie on TV, and while he did all the actual dancing, I remember whirling around and around the porch those hot summer days so long ago and never wanting to stop.

  When I think about it now, I realize that Jimmy and I started out our lives as friends. Our mothers had been high school friends who happened to reacquaint in the maternity wing of Geneva Hospital the week we were born. Because of our mothers, who were a bit fanatical about recording the history of our childhood with pictures, there are lots of photographs of Jimmy and me. The last time Jimmy and I looked through the album was an end-of-summer day, a day hot enough to melt rock, and we were in the kitchen trying to cool down with iced coffee. The rest of the house was jumping with music and noise and postadolescent energy. Besides friends and neighbors, Jimmy’s folks and my aunt were there. I was feeling sentimental that day, so I dragged out the album and made him look through it.

  “Ah, just what I’ve always wanted to do,” he said. “Trip down memory lane.”

  But I made him look anyway. One of the first pictures in the album was taken of Jimmy and me when we were just a few days old.

  “You were pretty cute,” he said. “But I had more hair.”

  “Big deal. Two strands more.”

  “Two more’s a lot more, Hackett.”

  Other pictures, carefully labeled by our mothers, show the evolution of our friendship: Jimmy and Morgan’s third-birthday party (Jimmy smearing cake into Morgan’s hair, very touching), Jimmy and Morgan’s first day of school (I wouldn’t go into the classroom unless he was holding my hand), the last day of summer camp, Jimmy and Morgan’s graduation from junior high (he graduated with honors, I flunked gym), Jimmy and Morgan in his secondhand MG, Jimmy and Morgan turn seventeen. This last picture, one of my favorites, was taken in Jimmy’s backyard. In it we have our arms casually draped around each other’s shoulders, which pretty much shows what our relationship was like. We never looked at each other as the objects of romantic love. I liked it that way. So did Jimmy. “What we have is better,” he said once. “Lovers come and go, but friends go on and on.”

  “Hey, Hackett,” Jimmy said. “You’re out of coffee.” I looked at him. He was holding the coffeepot, and I realized he hadn’t even bothered with the last few pages of the album.

  “Make some more then!” I said.

  “Now, now . . . don’t look at me like that, Morgan. You know what those pictures do to me. It’s all I can do to hold back the tears.” I knew part of him was kidding, but part of what he had said was true. Of the two of us, I would classify him as more open with his feelings and more sentimental.

  “Oh, make your coffee,” I said. “But that’s the last time I go down memory lane or anyplace else with you.”

  “We’re going into the Loop tomorrow, aren’t we? As usual?”

  “I guess so,” I said. Three times a week after school Jimmy and I caught the 3:25 into the city. Jimmy went to a dance class in the Loop, and I went to an acting workshop at Second City, which is an improvisational theater in the Old Town section of Chicago.

  “Have you seen your aunt yet?” Jimmy asked. “She looks exceptionally entrancing today.”

  “I think she’s in love again.” I slammed the album shut and stood up and looked at my reflection in the window. “You know what I’m going to have her do this afternoon? Pierce my ears.”

  “You?”

  “Yeah. What do you think?”

  “You?”

  “Why not?”

  “You hate needles. You hate blood. You even get squeamish watching Bactine commercials.”

  “I just wanted to know what you thought, okay? Spare me the diatribe.”

  “You want to know what I think? I don’t think you’ll go through with it.”

  I frowned. Jimmy probably knew me better than anyone, which could be very annoying at times.

  “Five bucks,” I said. “Five bucks says I go through with it.”

  “Why not ten?”

  “Fine. Ten.” I cleared my throat. “Well. I’ll just . . . I’ll go find my aunt and see if she’ll do it.”

  “You do that, Morgan. Tell her you’re dying to have two more holes in your head.”

  I gave him a nasty smile and turned around and walked out into the living room.

  I spotted my aunt right away. She was backed into a corner talking to a bunch of people. I knew exactly what was happening. Anytime we had a party, people drifted over to my aunt and asked for free psychiatric or medical advice. I thought that was pretty nervy until I realized I was about to do the same thing. She looked like she was drowning and waiting for someone to throw her a lifesaver, so I sort of waved to her, and that gave her an excuse to untangle herself from the crowd and come over to me.

  “You,” my aunt said, “are a doll. The next time your parents throw one of th
ese casual little get-togethers, I’m taking names and addresses and sending out bills.”

  “Aunt Lo, why do you come? This always happens—”

  “Oh, well, your father’s my big brother, and I can’t resist those twinkly eyes of his.”

  “What was the topic of the day?”

  “Gall bladders.”

  “Yuchh,” I said. “Oh, Aunt Lo, here comes Mrs. Johnson. She has a bad back and a bad marriage—”

  “Good God, I’ll be here all night. Let’s get out of here.”

  We ended up in the kitchen. Jimmy was just pouring coffee into glasses filled with cracked ice.

  “Dr. Hackett,” Jimmy said, “has she asked you yet?”

  “Asked me what?”

  “Morgan wants her ears pierced. Preferably now. Before she loses her nerve.”

  My aunt looked at me. “Are you sure about this?”

  “I’m sure. Will you do it? Now?”

  “Don’t you remember what happened when I gave you that tetanus shot last year? You took one look at the needle and almost passed out—”

  “I did not!”

  “You did,” Jimmy said. “I was there.”

  “Okay, that was last year! That was last year, all right? Maybe I’ve changed since then!” I looked at my aunt. “Will you do it?”

  “Honey, you’ll have to get earrings, and I don’t have any surgical needles in my bag—”

  “Surgical needles?” This was starting to sound more complicated than I’d thought.

  “I’ll tell you what,” my aunt said. “You’re coming into the city tomorrow, aren’t you? Why don’t you drop by the hospital around six and we’ll do it then, okay?”

  “Uh, okay,” I said. I didn’t know if I’d still have my nerve the next day: I didn’t like hospitals, and I especially didn’t like the idea of a “surgical needle,” which I pictured as very long and very sharp.

  “Don’t look so worried,” my aunt said. “I’ve been a doctor for twelve years, and I’ve never heard of anyone dying from having her ears pierced.”

  “There’s always a first time,” I said.

  Jimmy handed my aunt a glass of coffee. “Morgan always looks on the bright side.”

  There was a quiet knock on the kitchen door, and Mrs. Johnson opened it and peeked in. “Oh, Dr. Hackett, there you are! I wonder if I could talk to you a moment—I promise not to take up too much of your time. . . .”

  “That’s what they all say,” my aunt whispered. Jimmy and I looked at each other and smiled, and as Mrs. Johnson dragged her out of the kitchen, my aunt called back: “Don’t forget the earrings!”

  2

  Not only did I forget the earrings, I forgot my sweater, purse, and train ticket, too. The problem was my last class of the day. Glenbard West was this beautiful castlelike structure some sadist built on the top of a very steep hill. It even had a brick turret, the fifth floor, where I took art each day. As soon as the bell sounded, I had seven minutes—just seven—to dash down five flights of stairs, go to my locker, and race down the street to the station in time to catch the 3:25. Usually I made it with a couple of minutes to spare, but not this time. This time I barely had a foot on the train before it started moving. Jimmy was waiting for me in the next-to-the-last car.

  “I was watching you,” he said. “You should go out for track.”

  I wanted to say something smart back to him, something sarcastic and witty and rude, but I had a terrible stitch in my side, and it was all I could do to collapse onto the seat facing him. He leaned back in his seat and stretched out his long legs and plopped his feet up beside me.

  “Hey, the conductor’s coming,” I said. “Move your feet.”

  “These feet are going to be famous someday.”

  “Well, they’re not now, so move them.” He pulled his feet down and handed the conductor his ticket. That’s when I discovered I’d forgotten mine. I reached for my purse and it wasn’t there.

  “Jimmy!” I whispered. “I left my purse at school!”

  “Ticket, please,” the conductor said.

  “I don’t have one,” I said. “I mean, I forgot it. My friend will buy me another one.” The conductor and I both waited for Jimmy, who was busy staring out the window.

  “Jimmy!” I gave him a little kick. “I forgot my ticket! You’ve got to buy me another one!”

  He looked at me blankly. “Are you talking to me?”

  “Yes, I’m talking to you! Of course I’m talking to you! I told the conductor you’d pay for my ticket—”

  “Why should I pay for your ticket? I’ve never even seen you before—”

  “Jimmy, this isn’t funny!”

  “Look, kids,” the conductor said, “is this some kind of initiation or something? Because if the young lady here doesn’t buy a ticket, off she goes at the next stop—”

  “I guess you’ll be walking into the city, then,” Jimmy said.

  I gave him one of my dirtiest looks. “Jimmy Woolf . . . do you realize how close to death you are right now?”

  “Oh, all right,” he said, reaching for his wallet.

  After he paid the conductor, I said, “Why do you do that?!”

  “Do what?”

  “You know what! Act weird!”

  “Well, Morgan . . . you try your best to go through life unnoticed. I try my best not only to be noticed, but to be remembered, too.”

  “Well, I’m sure the conductor will never forget you,” I said. “I know I won’t.”

  When we got into the station, Jimmy gave me cab fare and walked me out onto Canal Street to the taxi stand.

  “I’ll meet you in front of Field’s in about an hour,” I said. “Dance good.”

  “Don’t I always?”

  Walking into the theater gave me chills—the good kind. I knew I was feeling the ghosts of a lot of acting heavyweights who’d been at Second City before me: Shelley Long, Bill Murray, Robert Klein, John Belushi. At one time or another they’d all started out here, standing on the same stage I was standing on now.

  “Okay,” the director said. “Instead of starting with improvisations today, I thought we’d try something a little different. . . . Everybody grab a chair and arrange yourselves in a semicircle, like an orchestra does.” We all got settled onstage. I thought maybe we were going to pantomime musicians. “Instead of musical instruments, you’ll each be playing an emotion.” And he assigned each of us an emotion: fear, happiness, anger, sorrow.

  “How about it, Morgan?” he said. “Think you can handle paranoia?”

  “I’ll try anything once,” I said.

  “Okay, then . . . when I point to you I want you to ‘play’ paranoia. Got it?”

  I nodded. I kept my eyes glued to the director. He raised his arms and started waving them like a berserk Leonard Bernstein. When he pointed to me I jumped up. Knocked my chair over. I ran across the stage and crouched in a corner. I tried to dredge up some scary experience I could be paranoid about, and I suddenly remembered my upcoming ear piercing.

  “You’re really loosening up, Morgan,” the director said. “That’s about the best acting you’ve done since you’ve been here.”

  I pictured one of those surgical needles my aunt had talked about the day before, and I shuddered.

  “Who’s acting?” I said.

  Jimmy was waiting for me in front of Field’s. I got out of the cab, and before I even had a chance to pay the driver, he grabbed me around the waist and started swinging me in the air.

  “Jimmy Woolf, are you crazy?” I hollered. “Put me down!”

  “Morgan,” he said, setting me on my feet. “Isn’t this a beautiful day! Isn’t this a wonderful city! Do you know how pretty you are?!”

  “Why don’t you cheer up?” I said. I paid the driver, who was giving us a very strange look; then I turned back to Jimmy and took a good long look at him. He was positively beaming. “All right,” I said. “I know you want me to ask. What happened? Did you break some sort of dancing record or s
omething? I know. The greatest number of pirouettes ever turned in a single afternoon, right?”

  “Much better,” he said. “My teacher got me an audition for Oklahoma!”

  “You’re kidding!”

  “It’s not just a dinner-theater show. It’s going to be right here. Downtown. They’re casting the principals out of New York and the dancers out of Chicago. Isn’t that great? After it plays at the Shubert, it’s going on the road—”

  “When do you try out?”

  “The first audition is this Friday. If they like what I do, I get a callback and audition again. My teacher seems to think I have a shot at it.”

  “Of course you do,” I said. “Nobody dances as good as you.”

  “Come on. Let’s go to the hospital and tell your aunt.”

  “Jimmy, wait—let’s just get something to eat and go home. My earrings are in the purse I left at school, so there’s no point in going all the way over to the hospital—”

  “Aha! You know why you forgot your earrings, don’t you?”

  “Because I was hurrying—”

  “Because your subconscious is afraid of having its ears pierced.”

  “Jimmy, do you ever get the feeling we’re living in an old black-and-white rerun of The Burns and Allen Show? Only just once I’d like the chance to be Gracie, and you can be George Burns and play straight man.”

  “You hate anything medical. So you conveniently forget about the earrings, and then you don’t have to face any needles.”

  “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”

  “It isn’t dumb. Ask your aunt.”

  “I will. But the fact remains: If I haven’t got any earrings, I can’t have my ears pierced, can I?”

  He looked at his watch. “I think we have time to go into Field’s and make a purchase.”

  Ever since I was a little kid I’ve loved Marshall Field’s. My grandmother says her grandmother used to shop here, and whenever I walk into the store, I like to think I’m wandering around the same counters my great-great-grandmother once did.

  “See anything you like?” Jimmy asked.

  “Do you know how expensive some of this stuff is?”