I'm Glad I Did Read online

  Copyright © 2015 Cynthia Weil and Soho Press, Inc.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Soho Teen an imprint of

  Soho Press, Inc.

  853 Broadway

  New York, NY 10003

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Weil, Cynthia.

  I’m glad I did / Cynthia Weil.

  HC ISBN 978-1-61695-356-0

  PB ISBN 978-1-61695-574-8

  eISBN 978-1-61695-357-7

  1. Composers—Fiction. 2. Popular music—Fiction. 3. Internship

  programs—Fiction. 4. Love—Fiction. 5. Secrets—Fiction.

  6. Mystery and detective stories. I. Title.

  PZ7.1.W43Im 2015

  [Fic—dc23 2014025047

  Interior design by Janine Agro, Soho Press, Inc.

  v3.1_r1

  This book is dedicated to my aunt, the late Toni Mendez. She was a dancer, a choreographer, a literary agent, and the family rebel. I idolized her. She was a woman ahead of her time who understood me before anyone else did, and who always said: “Cyn, dear, you have a book in you.” Of course, she said that to everyone, including the doorman and the doctor about to perform surgery on her, but I know she always meant it, especially when she said it to me. So, Toni, here it is!

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Acknowledgments

  PROLOGUE

  Some people follow their destiny by accident. Take Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. I was nine when I first saw the movie, and as soon as Dorothy sang “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” I knew she’d find a way to get there. True, she didn’t do anything to make it happen; a tornado just happened to take her exactly where she needed to go. But somehow that song still made me believe she had something to do with it.

  Knowing my life was not a movie, that there wasn’t much chance of a tornado in New York City, and that the place I needed to go was only across town, I knew I’d have to get there by myself. So way back then, before I even hit a double-digit birthday, I made a decision. One day I would fly over my own rainbow and write a song like that one. A song that could make people believe in possibilities and dreams. One day I’d walk through those big brass doors of the Brill Building at 1619 Broadway, the place where my Uncle Bernie told me songs were “born,” and I’d make it to Oz, too.

  It wasn’t until seven years later, the summer of 1963, that I was able to figure out how to get there. And even though I may have done it on my own and faced my fear by choice, looking back now, it seems that most of what followed—the joy and the love, the tragedy and the loss, the craziness of it all—was meant to be. It was my destiny that summer to find out who my family was, who my friends were, and eventually, who I was.

  The only part that didn’t feel like destiny and never will was the cost.

  CHAPTER ONE

  There are three unbreakable rules in my family.

  1. The Greens always have breakfast together.

  2. The Greens always negotiate instead of arguing.

  3. The Greens always become lawyers.

  I’m hardly ever hungry at breakfast, and while I really love a good screaming argument (I believe it clears the air), I’ve managed to live with rules one and two. It’s rule number three that scares me, crushes my dreams and destroys my soul. The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, is that I do not now, nor have I ever wanted to be an attorney.

  Unlike my big brother Jeffrey, I have not inherited the legal gene. Jeff—who at the age of seven suggested a contractual relationship between us regarding use of the bathroom we shared—is clearly a Green. I was four at the time, so I accepted, proof only that I seem to have been born into the wrong family. If I didn’t look so much like my mother, I’d suspect I’d been adopted, but we have the same face (heart shaped), same hair (ridiculously straight, medium brown with red highlights) and the same big feet (don’t even ask what size).

  That morning in June, I had a bigger secret than my shoe size.

  What I was keeping under wraps was a plan to break sacred rule number three by getting a summer job in the music business. A job that would no doubt lead to a total family flip-out. I had no intention of telling them anything about it unless I got it. Today was just an interview. I was painfully aware, though, that if anyone in my family of legal eagles thought I was hiding something, I was going to be cross-examined, so I tried to look relaxed and extremely normal as I ambled into the dining room and slid into my chair.

  “Good morning, Irving,” Jeff greeted me, munching on cornflakes. “You look a little more uptight than usual. What’s up?”

  So much for my acting ability. My brother has called me Irving, as in Irving Berlin, ever since I was idiot enough to tell him that I wanted to write songs.

  “Stop calling your sister Irving,” my mother instructed. She was cutting off the top of her egg with my grandmother’s silver egg cutter, reading the Herald Tribune and monitoring our conversation at the same time. She was one of the few people in the world who could do three things at once and do all of them perfectly.

  My mother, Janice Green—Janny—is a criminal attorney. My dad, Julius Green—Jules—is a judge. Jeff, the bathroom negotiator, is pre-law at Columbia. He’s also working at Janny’s office for the summer. Could he be more perfect? J is the family letter, given the happy coincidence of my parents’ first names. But J can also stand for lots of other things like “judgmental.” Or “joyless.” Or “just not understood.”

  Janny and Jules named me Justice, and if that’s not making a point and giving a kid vocational guidance, I don’t know what is. My middle name is Jeanette after Jeanette Rankin, who was the first woman to serve in the United States Congress. Try living up to that. The only saving grace is that everyone calls me JJ. I hardly ever tell anyone my real name or why I got it. Nobody knows at Dalton where I graduated from high school last week, class of 1963. I’m sixteen, two years younger than most of my friends because I skipped a grade in elementary school and made one up in middle school rapid advance.

  I mention this as proof that I am not too dumb to be a lawyer. I simply don’t want to be one. I’ve known what I wanted to be ever since I was three years o
ld and crawled up on the piano bench in my family’s living room. Ever since I touched the keys and realized I could make my own sound. Ever since I heard the Latin music that Juana (another cruel letter J coincidence), our housekeeper, played on her radio. I’ve wanted to be a music maker, a spinner of dreams, the creator of some kind of new and beautiful noise, a poetic voice saying what others feel but can’t express.

  The problem is that in the Green family, saying you want to be a songwriter is the equivalent of saying you want to be an axe murderer—or even worse, a music business lowlife who rips people off, like my Uncle Bernie.

  Juana whispered, “Buenos días, cariña,” and placed my usual toasted bran muffin in front of me.

  “Justice, I think you’re going a little heavy on the mascara,” Janny observed. “It makes you look unhappy.”

  “It’s not mascara, Mom, they’re false eyelashes. Everyone’s wearing them.”

  “You are not everyone,” Jules reminded me from behind The New York Times. He peered over the headline JFK SIGNS EQUAL PAY ACT. “Your mother’s right. You look unhappy.”

  “It’s her guilty look,” Jeff chimed in. “I remember it from when we shared a bathroom and she used it during my time.”

  “Why are you talking about me as if I’m not here, Jeffrey?” I asked calmly. Whenever he did that, I wanted to rip out his vocal chords, but letting him know would mean he’d won. So I smoothed the skirt of my seersucker shirtwaist dress and smiled. “Don’t you think that type of behavior is rude, Mom?”

  “JJ has a point, Jeffrey. You two could debate it, but it’s getting late, and I have to get to the office.”

  Janny stood and slipped into her raspberry linen suit jacket. It matched her pillbox hat perfectly. My mom looked like Jackie Kennedy before Jackie did. Impossibly chic. So chic that people often took her for a model. She was also brilliant, charming, well read, successful—and one of only two women in her class at Columbia law. You might say she was a tough act to follow, or you might say it was better not to try. You might also say that trying to slip into the music business on her watch had to be a death wish.

  Jules shrugged into his jacket, folded The New York Times, which he always finished before breakfast, and handed it to Janny. “Check Earl Wilson’s column,” he told her. “It appears Bernie is being called to testify in some payola scheme again.”

  “What else is new?” Janny asked, biting her lip. “I say a prayer every night—”

  “That no one will figure out that ‘the godfather of the music business’ is your no-goodnik brother,” Jules finished. “We know, Janny, we know.”

  “I know you know. I don’t know why I’m compelled to repeat myself.” She dropped her keys into her handbag and the newspaper into her attaché. Then she turned her attention to something she actually could control: us. “Justice, as discussed, you have this week to find a summer job doing something useful, or I’ll expect you to begin filing down at my office next Monday. Being around a law office might awaken your legal instincts. Jeff, there’s a package you need to pick up at Malken, Malken and Strobe. Please get it to me before ten thirty, and then Susan will tell you what to do today. Jules, I’d like to share a cab with you if you’re ready to leave.”

  And with that everyone jumped to do Janny’s bidding, as everyone usually did. I hightailed it out of her sight before she could figure out that Jeff was right on the money, that I was guilty as charged. Today I was taking a giant step toward my not-so-secret dream and my parents’ worst nightmare. Today I was sticking my toe into what Janny called “that cesspool, the music business.” Defying her was scary enough. But even more terrifying would be learning if I had any right to my dream. Today I’d be finding out if I had any songwriting talent.

  CHAPTER TWO

  I stood at the corner of West Forty-Ninth and Broadway, clutching my purse and staring up at Oz itself, the Brill Building. I silently offered up my own Janny-like prayer that I wouldn’t run into “no-goodnik” Uncle Bernie, even though I wasn’t sure we’d even recognize each other. I hadn’t seen him since I was a kid.

  This was it, the Mecca of songwriting. The brass doors were flanked by black marble pillars. Above them, set into a brass niche, was the bust of a young guy. I always thought it was George Gershwin or some other famous songwriter, but I found out it was the developer’s son. The poor guy died at seventeen. His name wasn’t even Brill. The Brill brothers owned the land, and they leased it to a developer. The Brills actually had a clothing store on the main floor.

  How do I know all this? I know it because I did a report on New York architecture for my art class just so I could research this location. I can also tell you more than you want to know about the New York Public Library. Like the lions out front were named Patience and Fortitude by Mayor LaGuardia in the 1930s.

  A steady stream of people poured in and out of those amazing doors, and all I’d ever wanted was to have a legitimate reason to be one of them. Fumbling in my purse, I pulled out the scrap I’d torn from last week’s Cashbox:

  WANTED: Good Music Publishing seeks smart assistant/talented aspiring songwriter. Exchange office work for feedback on songs from hot publisher. Call Rona at Ju5-5253 for audition appointment.

  I took a deep breath.

  I belong here, I told myself for the thousandth time. This job fits me like a glove.

  And I was already planning to emphasize the office experience to Janny and Jules.

  Shoving the scrap back in my bag, I checked my watch, then strode through the entrance. I wanted to be early, but not so early that I looked desperate.

  Inside, everything was gleaming brass and mirrors. I double-checked the Good Music suite number and strolled as casually as I could to the elevator at the end of the lobby.

  A whole bunch of people, mostly men in suits, stood waiting. The only person close to my age was a really cute guy. He looked like he might be Italian, with olive skin and black hair. He was studying papers in a manila folder, and when he looked up at the elevator dial, I saw that his eyes were green. Not blue-green or gray-green but almost emerald green. I’d never seen anything like them before. I had to look away to get my mind back on my own business, reviewing my song in my head, the one I was going to play for my audition.

  When the doors opened the waiting crowd, including Green Eyes, swarmed into the elevator. Everyone yelled out their floors to the elevator operator, a short cheery guy in a uniform, and I chirped out, “Eight,” hoping I’d been heard.

  Conversations swirled around me as the doors opened and closed.

  “Hey, Nick, when you take a break, bring me up the trades.”

  “Sure thing, Mr. Bienstock,” the elevator guy answered.

  “Where are you this week, Aaron?”

  “Five with a bullet, Cashbox. Seven with a bullet, Billboard.”

  “Enjoy it now, my friend. Goodman’s got the follow-up.”

  “Is there anything he doesn’t have the follow-up to?”

  “I’ve heard he’s asking for a guarantee of the B side these days, and he’s getting it.”

  “Yeah, it’s that and your firstborn child.”

  There were some chuckles. I wondered what was so funny. They were speaking in Music-Biz, and the only person I knew who could translate was Uncle Bernie. But soon I wouldn’t need an interpreter. I’d learn how to speak fluent Music-Biz on my own.

  When we hit eight, I elbowed my way out of the elevator.

  Good Music was way down at the end of the hall, and as I made my way there, I could hear muffled music coming from behind closed doors: pianos pounding out riffs, voices struggling to find melodies and records being played—no, not played, blasted. All of it was punctuated by some very bad language. I quickened my pace with a secret smile. It was exactly how I imagined it, raw and real, and a million light-years away from the world of the Green family.

  At Good Music I entered a small waiting room with built-in seating. Two guys a little older than me had settled in, probably to
wait for their auditions. One was tall and skinny, all elbows, knees, and acne. The other was a chubby little guy with an already receding hairline, wearing a suit and a tie with musical notes on it. At the far end, a switchboard operator was busy chewing gum and frantically answering continuous incoming calls.

  “Good Music. Hi, Nancy, Bobby said to tell Mr. Wexler he’ll call him back after lunch. Good Music. Sorry, Mr. Goodman is booked all week. Just drop off the demo, and I’ll get it to his secretary. Good Music. Please hold. Good Music. We’re not seeing any more applicants until Friday, so call back on Thursday to see if the job’s still open. Good Music. Sorry …” She looked up at me. “Lost the hold. So what can I do for ya?”

  “I’m JJ Green. I have an eleven o’clock appointment to see Mr. Goodman about the assistant job.”

  She nodded. “Take a load off. You’re after these guys.”

  As I sat down, she called out, “Paul Keller, go on in.”

  The suit with the musical tie got up and gulped audibly. All the color drained out of his face. He looked so terrified that my heart went out to him, even though we were competing for the same job.

  “Good luck,” I whispered.

  He looked at me, eyes glazed with fear, wiped his hands on his pants and entered the inner office. He looked as if he was going to his execution.

  “You’re not here for the assistant job, are you?” the skinny one asked.

  “Yeah, I am.”

  “I didn’t know girls wrote songs,” he announced, as if his ignorance was something to be proud of.

  “We learn something every day, don’t we?” I responded politely. “Did you ever hear of Alberta Hunter?”

  His face was blank.

  “Great blues songwriter, female. Wrote a song called ‘Downhearted Blues’ that sold two million in 1923. How about Kay Swift?”

  He smirked. “I know about Bob Swift. He was a catcher for the Detroit Tigers way back.”

  “Kay Swift was the first woman to write the whole score to a Broadway musical called Fine and Dandy in 1930. Did you ever—”