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“Oh my God.” Ava pulls an old magazine out of one of the zillion filing cabinets in Deborah’s basement. She flashes the cover in Deborah’s direction – two women, a familiar blonde and an older brunette, with the words FUNNY LADIES! beside them. “Did you know Mrs. Maisel?”
“Yes, I knew Mrs. Maisel. What do you think I was doing all those years, yukking it up at coffee shop open mics in the middle of nowhere?”
“Wow.” Ava gazes at the picture. “She is so iconic. Did you know she stumbled into standup by accident on the night her husband left her for his secretary? And someone just happened to be recording it, so it got preserved? You can listen to the whole thing on YouTube. It’s incredible. I mean, it’s sort of slut-shamey in a way that’s not cool. But, you know, the 1950s, whatever. She got arrested and, like, dragged off the stage, and flashed the crowd on the way out.”
“I don’t know why you think I’m unaware of any of this.”
“I was just making sure. You don’t seem very ‘Yay, women.’”
“What are you talking about? I love women. They’re great joke fodder. All those mood swings.”
Ava rolls her eyes.
“Oh, you’ll like this,” Deborah adds, tapping Ava’s shoulder. “She was a – you know.”
“You really can’t talk about Jewish people like that.”
“No, a lesbian!”
Okay. Ava didn’t expect that one. “What? Didn’t she have like four husbands?”
“But none of them lasted. Have you heard of Susie Myerson?”
“Any relation to Mike Myers?”
“What am I talking about? Of course you haven’t. She was Midge Maisel’s Jimmy, except, you know, much better at her job. Talk about icons – now, she was an icon in the showbiz world. She worked with all the greats. I tried to get her to manage me in the eighties, could never snag her.” Deborah leans in, her eyes bright with interest. “You know, she was there that night of Midge’s first set. She used to work the bar in Greenwich where it happened. The two of them were completely self-made. Rose up from nothing. A bartender and a housewife.”
“God, that rules,” Ava says with an admiring sigh. “I don’t see how that makes them lesbian lovers, though.”
“Well, you never saw Susie Myerson, to begin with.”
“You can’t tell someone is gay just by looking at them!”
“Can’t I?” Deborah gives Ava a significant look. Ava adjusts the buttons on her flannel self-consciously. “I’m telling you. I saw them together once, backstage at the Emmys. They were just … they had it, you know? That thing. That intimacy. The way they laughed together … They were the real deal.”
“Not every two people with intimacy are secretly gay lovers.”
“God. You say that now. Why can’t you bring that energy to your take on Sesame Street?”
“I’m sorry, Bert and Ernie are relationship goals, and the covert queer rep America has always needed.”
Deborah laughs.
“You know what?” Ava decides. “I hope it is true. Mrs. Maisel, secret queer icon. And her beloved lesbian Jimmy.” She types ‘mrs maisel susie myerson’ into her phone, looks at the image search results. There are tons of pictures. “Okay, they are pretty adorbs together. That height difference? Mwah! Yeah. I can see it.”
Deborah is resting her chin on her hand now, looking contemplative. “They died sixteen days apart, you know.”
“What?”
“Oh, don’t cry. They lived to be ancient broads first. Especially Susie Myerson. No one really understood how she was still up and running. She was always cagey about her age, but there were rumors she might have been 120.”
“Hey, you know what they say to do for longevity. You gotta eat your daily fruits and vag.”
“Jesus!” Deborah snickers and smacks Ava’s arm. Ava laughs triumphantly.
“I remember Mrs. Maisel hosting those red carpet events on TV when I was a kid. Back then I had no idea she had such an epic career behind her. I just thought she was being really mean but hilarious about everybody’s outfits.” Ava zooms in on a picture, a side-by-side of Midge Maisel and Susie Myerson then and not-quite-now. On the left, they’re young, both dark-haired, Susie rocking the hell out of a pageboy cap while Midge is a high femme floofy-dressed vision; on the right, Susie has a crazy shock of long gray hair, while Midge is still obstinately brunette but unmistakably old. In both pictures, they’re laughing together. “They really died sixteen days apart?”
“Susie first, then Midge. You know, that happens. You spend your whole life with someone, you can’t live without them. It becomes bodily. Something beyond your control. Or so I’ve heard.”
“God. That’s beautiful.” Ava makes a face after a moment’s thought. “And kind of awful.”
Deborah looks at her with new interest. Maybe even a little respect. “You think so, huh?”
“I don’t know. Being so reliant on someone else that you literally die when they’re not around anymore? It’s kind of gross.”
“Agreed,” Deborah says with a grimace.
“But, yeah, okay. Objectively, very romantic. You know what? I bet somebody could do a fierce biopic of them.”
“Maybe you should try it.”
Ava huffs. “Yeah right.”
“What?”
“Oscar bait-y screenplays, not really my bag, baby. God. Why am I so stuck on Mike Myers today?”
“Well, why not try? Don’t limit yourself. You’re young. The world’s your oyster. You know, Midge Maisel was around your age when she first started out.”
“Well, yeah, but a 25 year old in the 1950s was way more of an adult, traditionally speaking, for … economy reasons.”
“You know what she was at age 25?”
“A housewife, I guess. You said. Although I don’t think it’s great for us to undervalue the domestic contributions of women. But also, like, if I was a housewife, I would blow my brains out.”
“So would your husband. But yeah. A housewife. It was her husband who wanted to be the standup comic.”
Ava gasps. “No way.”
Clearly pleased by her interest, Deborah keeps talking. “She booked his gigs, bribed the club owner for stage time with home-cooked meals, took meticulous notes on his sets to try to get them into better shape. She never thought for a second about doing it herself. All she really saw for herself, for her future, was taking care of this guy, making this mediocre aspiring comic’s dreams come true. And there she was all along, a genius. Not everybody knows that. She tried to keep it kind of quiet, for his dignity. Apparently he was an okay guy after the initial secretary-banging period.”
“Then how do you know it?”
“She told me. When we did this photoshoot.” Deborah pokes the magazine cover. “She knew Frank from around; they’d crossed paths in the comedy scene a few times. We hadn’t split up yet. I still thought we were fine, but … I guess she got a vibe. The only thing worse than a funny wife is a wife who knows, really knows her own worth. That’s what she told me. And sure enough ...”
“Wow,” Ava marvels.
“Yeah. Wow.”
“Thank God she found Susie.”
“Well. Some people get lucky.” Ava wonders, in the melancholy silence, if Deborah’s ever been lucky that way. All signs point to no. Deborah stands up. “So hey. Write your Oscar-bait lesbian comedy icons screenplay. Who knows? She’d probably get a kick out of it.”
“Yeah?” Ava smiles a little at the thought. “Yeah, okay. Maybe I will.”
“Not today, obviously. Or this year, at this rate. You’re really behind down here.” Deborah makes one last judgmental face at the spread of papers surrounding Ava, then makes her exit.
“Thanks, Deborah,” Ava calls after her. “Great talking to ya, as always.”
“Less chatting, more working!” Deborah calls back. "And no more nude photos!"
Ava laughs to herself, a sort of lest-she-cry indulgence, and studies Deborah’s young face on the magazine cover. Just like Mrs. Maisel, she’s staring straight forward, her eyes bright with intelligence and drive. Refusing to take no for an answer. Insisting on her own brilliance. Her own worth.
Okay. So Ava might be developing a little bit of a work crush on Past Deborah. Like hell will she ever tell Current Deborah about it (God, Current Deborah would be such an asshole with that information), but the fact remains. She can’t imagine anyone being immune to all that beauty and wit and swagger.
“Stop looking at me like that,” she mutters to magazine cover Deborah, and flips it over. Then she sighs and moves on to the next box of stuff.