The Fantasy of Films
By Marianna Heusler

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My dad was a father to five children, owner of two dogs, three cats, and he worked at a routine job. One of the joys of his life was playing cards at The Elks, every Sunday.

On one hand, my mother was a kind woman and didn’t want to deprive my father. On the other hand, she needed some time to herself.

Where could they plunk the three oldest children, ages 11 (me), 10, my sister Martha, and 9, my brother, Joey? And oh, yes, Cousin Marilyn, who was also 11?

The movies.

The movies began at one o’clock and finished at five. Cartoons opened two double features. The cost for children was fifty cents and my father always gave each of us a nickel for candy.

How he fussed when they raised the price to six cents!

He wasn’t terribly concerned about which movies we went to. (Although he would not have approved of Jack The Ripper, which Martha and Joey snuck into. The film is causing nightmares for my brother Joey to this very day.)

Mostly the movies were Doris Day films, Pillow Talk, Lover Come Back, That Touch of Mink.

Sitting in the dark, at the Victory Theater, with my siblings and my cousin, I was transported into the magic and the glamour of New York City. Beautiful apartments with sweeping views, pretty, color coordinated clothes, exciting jobs, meals at the automat, handsome beaus all made me want to live inside that movie screen.

It ended all too soon.

I remember leaving the theater on a Sunday evening in the dark. Depressed, I returned to my own dull, drab, routine life, back to an apartment in the projects and homework left undone.

Riding home, I vowed that when I grew up, I would move to New York City and become Doris Day.

I had never been to New York, although we had distant relatives in Brooklyn. My father promised that when Marilyn and I graduated from eighth grade, he would take us to that magical city to visit them.

But alas, he died of a massive heart attack, before that was possible.

Still I wasn’t about to give up on my dream.

So after I graduated from college, I packed my bags, and moved to Brooklyn to live with the distant relatives.

Eventually, I found my way to the city and took an apartment on the Upper East Side. We were four girls, who shared a two bedroom, two bath unit, each paying one hundred dollars a month. The apartment had roaches and we squabbled plenty. I got a job as a receptionist in a law firm, a little mundane and low paying. But I didn’t care. I was in New York City.

When a year was up and I had some experience, I went to an employment agency, hoping to find something more suitable. I married the owner of the agency and then had my pick of jobs, finally landing a position in a global cosmetic company, where I worked my way up to an executive position.

I moved into the apartment in the sky, with sweeping views. I bought pretty, colorful clothes, and enjoyed many a meals in the automat.

I’m not Doris Day, living a charmed life, but I have come to learn that not even Doris Day was Doris Day, living a charmed life. But I’m living the life I always dreamed of.

And in the end, what more can one hope for?

 

 

Marianna Heusler is an Edgar nominated author of nine novels and hundreds of short stories. You can learn more about her on her website: Mariannamystery.com.

 




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