Work Text:
1960
Mary sits in the shadows of the dingy, smoky, well-loved club, watching Frank and Beth saying their vows in the spotlight. They look so happy – Frank looks so happy. Frank looks at Beth like maybe she means as much to him as music, like Mary’s never seen him look at another human being except for Charley. And Charley, well, Charley is part of Frank’s music – no, not part of it, exactly, but the other half that completes it. Frank’s other half. What that makes Beth. . .is Beth’s problem. Maybe Beth is Frank’s other half in a different way. And, of course, Beth is up on that stage with Frank and Charley every night. The three of them, making something special together.
While Mary – Thanks, I don’t perform except at dinner. . . Mary has never been part of their world. Sure, she sympathizes. She knows what it’s like to stare at a blank page trying to pull the right words, or any words, out of a brain that won’t play ball. She knows what it’s like to work at a lousy job that’s next door and worlds away from the thing you actually love to do, squandering precious hours to make a few bucks to live in a rathole and try to make art after hours.
Which, let’s be honest, is a great metaphor for being friends with Frank and Charley. They love each other, they like each other, they’re each other’s kind of people, they have a lot of fun, they have each other’s backs. But Frank and Charley are partners, and Mary. . .is their loyal fan.
She blinks her stinging eyes and pastes a smile on her face. She is not the kind of girl who cries at weddings, and she’s definitely not the kind of girl who cries when the guy she’s carrying a torch for marries somebody else.
Also, she decides, she’s not the kind of girl who lets her own dreams slip away because she was too busy cheering on her friends. Frank and Charley make a great show, onstage and off. But when their train to fame and fortune arrives – and Mary is sure it will, one day – there won’t be a seat on it for her.
Time to tend your own dream, Flynn. Time to write your own story.
1963
Mary sits across from Charley in their favorite greasy spoon, drinking coffee that tastes like it’s been sitting on the burner for three days.
“So, how does it feel to be a published novelist?” asks Charley.
“The same as it did the last time you asked,” Mary laughs.
“Only with more copies sold.” Grinning, Charley raises his coffee cup in a toast; Mary clinks her own cup to his.
“It feels good,” she says.
“Good. You deserve it. Now, if only some of your hard-earned good fortune would rub off on me and Frank. . .”
“Oh, because having Joe Josephson produce your show on Broadway isn’t enough good fortune for you? Equally hard-earned, by the way.”
“No, it is, it’s great. It’s the break we need. As long as the show doesn’t flop,” says Charley.
“Don’t be silly, people will love it,” says Mary.
“I just wish we loved it,” Charley sighs, then waves away his incipient gloom, and says, “But enough of my moaning and groaning. How’s your next book coming?”
Mary makes a face.
“There is a next book coming, right?” asks Charley.
“Yes, yes, there is. I’ve started it, even. I just, I don’t know. . . Does that thing ever happen to you, where you sit down to write and all you can think is how much you hate every word you’ve ever written?”
“Nope, never,” says Charley blithely. “Except for the words I’ve written under duress. You hereby have my permission to hate every word you wrote for that magazine – what was it called, the one with the pop-up pictures?”
“Don’t remind me,” groans Mary, smiling like he meant her to smile.
“But not your novel – any of your novels. Not the words you write for love. Deal?”
“Deal. Thanks, Charley.”
“Don’t mention it.” He smiles, but she can tell it’s a little bit of a performance – like all the patented Charley-sweet-good-humor he’s been giving her since she arrived.
“Hey,” she says. “Something on your mind?”
He hesitates, then obviously decides to take the plunge. “You talk to Frank much lately?”
“Uh, yes? We all had dinner together just last week, remember?”
“No, I mean, just the two of you.”
Mary has made a point of not doing things one-on-one with Frank for several years, not that it was all that common in the first place. She’d have thought Charley knew that, but of course, they never talk about it.
She shakes her head. “Why?”
“Oh, I just thought, maybe. . .” Charley shrugs, then rubs the back of his neck. “I think Frank might be having a. . .thing, with Gussie.”
“Producer’s wife Gussie?”
“Yeah.”
“What makes you think so?” asks Mary.
“I mean, she’s been coming on to him since they first met," says Charley. "Which isn’t proof of anything, obviously. She comes on to a lot of people. But she’s one of those people who like to collect trophies, you know?”
Mary nods grimly. “Frank wouldn’t do that to Beth, though. Would he?”
“A year ago, I would have said no way in hell. But now. . . He’s changing, Mary. I don’t know who he’s turning into. Half the time, talking to him is like talking to Joe: all box office projections and contract clauses and which party we need to go to so we can gladhand which person who might put a word in the ear of some other person who might do something for us. Is he like that with you? Am I off my nut and imagining things?”
“You’re certainly not off your nut,” Mary reassures him. “I mean, not in any new way.”
“Thanks a million, old friend,” says Charley sarcastically, with a smile at the teasing.
“As for Frank. . .I don’t know,” she says, thinking about it. “He’s always been obsessive about whatever’s currently on his mind. Maybe he wants to learn the business side of theater? That wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing.”
“No. . .not necessarily.” Charley sighs. “Look, it’s not that I object to us making money. Or selling tickets. I want people to come to our show! I want people to like it! I want to be able to pay my bills. I just don’t want to sell out – our souls, I mean, not the box office.”
“Well, of course,” says Mary. “Listen, you know how I finally finished my book? I stopped worrying about what other people were going to think of it, and just wrote the book I wanted to write.”
“Easy for you to say,” says Charley. “You didn’t have somebody come along and say, ‘Never mind that old thing, here’s a box, write the book that goes in this box and maybe I’ll publish it for you.’”
“Well, I did, actually. My editor insisted I had to put in a romance plot. And I said, no, that would be a different book. I wrote this book.”
“Good for you,” says Charley. “I wish I had your courage. I could stand up to Joe, but Frank won’t back me. And I don’t seem to be able to stand up to Frank.”
Charley meets her eyes and she can see the heartbreak in his.
“It’s because you’re not willing to walk away,” says Mary. “I could stand up to my editor because I didn’t want the contract as much as I wanted my book to be the best book I could write. Same with you and Joe. With you and Frank, there’s more at stake.”
“He’s my partner. He’s my oldest friend.”
Mary nods. “And someday, you’re going to have to decide which means more to you: your writing or Frank’s friendship.”
“Frank wouldn’t put me in that position,” says Charley, but he doesn’t sound like he’s convincing himself, let alone her.
“I think Frank doesn’t always notice what position he’s putting other people in,” says Mary slowly.
“I hate to ask, but could you talk to him? He might listen to you,” says Charley.
“No,” says Mary. “I don’t think he would.”
1964
Mary sits in the audience next to Evelyn, with Charley, Frank and Beth beyond her. Opening night! Her friends have a show on Broadway! Charley and Frank were bouncing off the walls all through dinner and the cab ride to the theatre, and although she can’t see them with the lights down and Evelyn in the way, she bets they’ve got their hands over their own mouths to keep them from being those assholes whispering in the audience during their own show.
The show is good. Of course it is: Frank and Charley are the real deal, individually and as a team, and this isn’t the first thing they’ve written together. The dialogue is tight and witty, the music sparkles and tugs and the heartstrings and makes you want to hum along. . .and it’s all very Broadway Musical. Nothing wrong with that; after all, it is a Broadway musical. But. . . It’s not Take a Left. And it’s not the next thing you write after writing Take a Left, which is really what the boys ought to be working on by now. What it is, is the kind of musical Frank and Charley always swore they’d do better than.
Maybe the second act is better, she thinks. Only, as it turns out, what with an unplanned trip to the hospital, none of them get to see the second act that night.
She goes back to see it again later, on her own. It’s fine, it’s a fun night at the theatre. It’s not what Frank and Charley should be doing with their time and talent.
The next time she sees Frank, months later, he’s full of enthusiasm for the new show he and Charley are writing. Another show for Joe Josephson, meaning another crowd-pleaser in the mold of Musical Husbands.
“After that, we’ll be established, and we can write the shows we want to write,” he says. It sounds like something he says a lot. Maybe he even believes himself.
“And Charley’s on board with that plan?” she asks, because she still feels like she owes this much to Charley – and to Frank.
“Of course,” Frank replies easily. “Charley always grumbles, but he likes having a hit just as much as I do. And he gets that this is how the world works. You have to pay your dues to earn the ability to say what you want to say and have people actually listen.”
“I don’t know,” says Mary. “There’s always somebody who wants to hear what you have to say.”
“Sure, but how is that person going to find you if you’re performing in some church basement?” Frank responds. “And how can you afford to keep making art unless you get enough people to want to buy tickets? Come on, Mary, you’ve had two books published, you’ve got an editor and a publisher, you know how this works.”
He has a point. Mary knows she’s lucky to have broken through and gotten published, and she’s damn lucky to have found a publisher who (mostly) wants to publish her kind of books and respects her when she really puts her foot down. And she knows exactly how many smaller battles she’s chosen not to fight, in exchange for the power to get her way on the really important things. Still.
“Frank, I’ve heard pretty much everything you’ve ever composed, right?”
“Yes, of course.”
“I can still sing all of the songs from Frankly Frank from memory. I’ve heard you and Charley sing through umpteen drafts of Take a Left. I love your music.”
“Thank you,” says Frank seriously. He’s obviously touched to hear Mary say so, and he wants her to know it, and when Franklin Shepard looks you in the eyes with sincere emotion and trust, it’s basically like staring straight into the sun.
Mary takes a breath and doesn’t look away. “Musical Husbands is a waste of your talent. Anyone could write Musical Husbands. You should be writing music only Franklin Shepard should write. You should be writing music that will change the world. Like you always said you would.”
Frank’s jaw tightens. Then he smiles, but it’s the smile he gives everyone, not the one he saves for Mary and Charley and Beth.
“That’s what I’ve always loved about you, Mary. You’re not afraid to tell it like you see it.”
Five minutes later, he’s gone, claiming to be late for a meeting.
Mary thinks about calling up Charley and telling him about her conversation with Frank, but decides not to. Their partnership isn’t her business, really. It never was.
1973
Mary sits in front of the television, jaw flapping in astonishment. On the screen, mild-mannered Charley Kringas has just unloaded a decade’s worth of pent-up frustration at Franklin Shepard on a live broadcast. There are several long seconds of silence as the interviewer is apparently struck dumb. Charley looks exhilarated, then horrified. He reaches out a hand towards Frank, who stands up and strides off the set in a cold rage.
Mary’s boyfriend, Jeff, whistles. “Man, that was a performance you don’t see every day. Didn’t you say you knew these guys?”
“They used to be my best friends,” says Mary, still stunned. “We met on a rooftop, looking for Sputnik. We were – they were inseparable.”
“Well, looks like they’re separated now. Divorced on national TV.”
“Yeah.”
Poor Charley. Poor Frank. . .although from the sound of it, he had it coming. . .had something coming, anyway, although maybe not that exact thing. . . Mary wonders if she should call either of them. Or both of them. But what would she say? What is there to say?
“Good thing you’re not mixed up with them anymore,” says Jeff. “Who needs that kind of drama?”
Mary remembers the electric shock that ran through her when she stepped out on to the roof and saw two beautiful young men talking about changing the world with music and words. Staying up all night watching a shiny dot (barely visible against the glowing sky over New York City), sharing dreams and making plans for a brilliant future. She remembers thinking, I’ve found the people I’m going to spend my life with.
“Not me,” she says, changing the channel.