The Girl in White Gloves

by Kerri Maher

  “Easier said than done, but . . . you are right,” she said. “I know you are.”

  He put his forehead to hers. “It’s hard, Gracie. I know that. I think we Catholic kids who were raised with all that guilt find it extra hard to stand up for ourselves and what we want. That’s the reason I stayed married too long. Guilt and expectations.”

  “What’s the opposite? I wonder,” said Grace. “The opposite of guilt is innocence, and I don’t want that, either.”

  “Better to think of the antidote, not the opposite,” suggested Gene. “Pride and independence?”

  “Poise and independence.”

  “I like that for you. You are poised, Gracie. That’s what makes you a natural actress.” He kissed her over their paper plates, and she felt lucky and happy until he suggested they meet some friends at a bar downtown. She wanted to end their evening now, when it was perfect, not hours later with Gene so drunk he could barely hail a taxi home.

  “How about we go back to my place and have an early night?” she countered, sliding her arms around his waist and hooking her thumbs into his belt as suggestively as she dared in public.

  They were standing on the sidewalk now, and they kissed as the evening traffic blared by.

  “Just one drink,” he said.

  There’s no such thing with you. “I can’t,” she said, pressing against him. “I have to be up for Sandy and a rehearsal tomorrow.”

  “You’re too good,” he said, and she knew he meant it as a compliment, but it was also the start of his rejection. The good time with friends was more alluring than the tumble and early bedtime with her. It stabbed at her heart.

  “The early bird and all that,” she said, unhooking her thumbs and stepping away. “But if you have a later day, I understand.” She didn’t, but she also knew she couldn’t say that. Silence.

  He caught her hand, squeezed it, then kissed her again. “You’re the best. You know that? I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  She’d always remember that as the moment she knew she’d never risk her relationship with her parents for Gene. Though she wasn’t ready to end things, either, not just yet.

  * * *

  Nineteen fifty-one bled seamlessly into nineteen fifty-two. Grace was comfortably settled into her New York life, seeing Sandy every week and working constantly—Edith had lined up close to a dozen television dramas before the summer! High Noon seemed to be stalled forever in editing, and wouldn’t be released till July, and so any breaks that might come from her role in that were in the unseen future. Still, she won a part in a comedy scheduled for the Booth Theatre in April, To Be Continued. Grace knew from the start that it wasn’t destined for greatness, but she accepted the part just to get up on that stage. “Good for you, Grace,” said Uncle George. “Every part counts.”

  As winter wore doggedly on, she found herself making more and more excuses not to stay out with Gene, and socialize with her girlfriends instead. One of her nights on the town with Sally and Prudy and Carolyn found the four of them at the Copacabana, eating, listening to jazz, and laughing riotously about their Barbizon days.

  “What were we thinking?” Carolyn demanded, slamming her open palm on the table with conviction, demanding to know why they had dutifully followed all the rules of the strict boardinghouse.

  “I was worried about having to go home,” said Grace, to the agreeing nods of the other three.

  “It was the only place for girls like us in those days,” added Prudy.

  “In those days?” Sally said mockingly. “It was only three years ago!”

  “Was it really?” Prudy asked dreamily.

  Grace nodded. “It seems like much longer ago to me, too.” And it did, though Grace was very aware of the ways in which her life was precisely the same.

  “Don’t look now”—Carolyn leaned forward, bare elbows on the white tablecloth, and said in a low, conspiratorial voice—“but Dean Martin just came in.”

  “You can’t just say that and not expect us to look,” snapped Prudy, whose head and eyes went straight to the entrance. Grace didn’t have to move her body in order to see in that direction, and she admired the dark-haired crooner in his dinner jacket; on his arm was a gorgeous woman with platinum blond hair and a sparkling black dress.

  But Grace’s eyes didn’t follow him to his table as those of her friends did; instead, she immediately recognized the woman who’d been standing behind him: Josephine Baker, the singer, who looked resplendent in a peacock blue evening gown and a headband embellished with real peacock feathers. She was with a handsome young man in a tuxedo whom Grace did not recognize. On Uncle George’s suggestion, Grace had started listening to Baker years ago, and her records were among Grace’s favorites. To her, this legend’s appearance was far more thrilling than Dean Martin’s. After all, the singer and actress had had to overcome so much to become who she was. Fed up with the intolerance and prejudice in her own country, she’d expatriated to France, where she’d been one of Paris’s most sought-after cabaret stars, then—as if that wasn’t enough—she had been instrumental in the resistance during the war. Grace admired much more than the woman’s voice.

  Though her friends continued gossiping about Dean Martin and their recent dates and job opportunities, Grace felt distracted by the presence of Josephine Baker. Rarely had she wanted so much to introduce herself to a star, and yet she felt incredibly shy. Who was she to talk to the great Josephine Baker? Sure, she’d been in High Noon with Gary Cooper, but that picture hadn’t come out yet, and the television work she was somewhat known for was such small potatoes compared to what the other woman had done in her career.

  “Grace.” Prudy sang her name and waved a hand in front of her face to snap her out of it.

  “Are you dreaming of Dean?” giggled Carolyn.

  “Hardly,” said Grace. “I want to introduce myself to Josephine Baker, but I don’t know how.”

  “You?” Carolyn asked, genuinely shocked. “Grace Outgoing Kelly?”

  “Am I?” Grace asked, surprised that anyone would use that word to describe her.

  “You can talk to anyone,” agreed Prudy.

  Sally nodded. “And those impressions you do! They take guts.”

  Buoyed a bit by her friends’ faith in her and the idea of herself as outgoing, she swallowed the last of her wine and stood up. “All right, then,” she said. “Wish me luck.”

  Legs wobbling, she squared her shoulders and walked over to Ms. Baker’s table, feeling the soft layers of tulle from her petticoat swish around her calves. Suddenly she was at the singer’s table, and words were coming out of her mouth. “Excuse me,” she said, trying to make eye contact with Ms. Baker and her date, both of whom looked at her in surprise, “but I just couldn’t let tonight go by without introducing myself and telling you how much your music has meant to me since I was a little girl. My name is Grace Kelly.”

  Ms. Baker smiled graciously, thrust out her hand, and said in her richly textured voice, “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Miss Kelly. You look familiar.” Narrowing her eyes and concentrating on Grace’s face, she asked, “Do you sing?”

  Grace laughed, blushing. “Hardly. I think the lowest marks I received at the Academy were for singing. No, I do a bit of television and modeling work. I was on Broadway once, and I keep trying for more. And please call me Grace.”

  Ms. Baker snapped her fingers and said, “That’s it! I saw you in a television version of Molnár’s Swan! Didn’t you play the princess?”

  Blushing hotter, Grace nodded and said, “That was me.”

  “You were excellent!”

  “I can’t tell you how much that means to me,” Grace said. In fact, it was probably the single best compliment she’d ever received; she could hardly believe her ears.

  “Why don’t you join us?”

  “Oh, thank you, Ms. Baker,” stammered Grace, feel
ing more flustered by the attentions of this woman than she had by those of any man. “But I’m here with a few friends tonight, and I couldn’t leave them.”

  “Well, bring them over,” she said, “and call me Josephine.”

  “Truly?”

  “Truly,” said Josephine with a firm nod.

  Suddenly light on her feet and dizzy with excitement, Grace went back to her table to ask if her friends wanted to join Josephine Baker. Of course they did, and the Copacabana staff genially moved chairs and place settings to accommodate the request. Introductions were made all around, and they learned that the singer’s good-looking friend was Carlos Rodriguez, lately from Havana.

  Josephine insisted on buying them all drinks and raised her glass to all of theirs, saying, “To new friends,” while she looked directly at Grace.

  While Josephine was in New York, she and Grace went out a few more times. Though the singer was old enough to be her mother, she was so youthful and effusive about the latest and most controversial jazz and film and theater, Grace found it challenging to keep up with her; it seemed every moment of her day and night was scheduled with performances and dinners and drinks, and Grace beamed with pride anytime Josephine introduced her as her friend. And it seemed they really were friends. Grace even opened up to her about Gene in a way she’d never dream of doing with anyone else.

  “Tell me more about this Gene character,” Josephine said one night as they nursed martinis at the 21 Club. “If you don’t mind me saying so, you seem too young to be intent on just one man. Not when you are so beautiful, and everywhere we go, men stop talking to their wives and dates as you walk by.”

  “They do not,” Grace protested, genuinely embarrassed by this flattery.

  “You must notice,” Josephine said.

  Grace shook her head. “I try to be with the people I’m with. And I suspect that when you and I are together, people are looking at you. You’re Josephine Baker, for heaven’s sake!”

  The other woman frowned. “My name doesn’t mean what it once did,” she replied. “In some ways, the twenties were more tolerant than today. And at least in the thirties and forties, we were all united against a clear evil. First poverty, then Hitler.” With a faraway look in her glimmering kohled eyes, Josephine took the last olive off the toothpick from her glass with her teeth and chewed. Grace wondered what she was thinking, but didn’t dare ask.

  After a moment of private reverie, Josephine refocused on Grace and said, “So. Gene Lyons. Tell me.”

  “Oh, Josephine, I don’t think I can be with him anymore. And here we are about to do The Rich Boy together for television. It’s based on an F. Scott Fitzgerald story about a drunk and the girl who loves him, and it’s just awful because it’s basically about me and Gene.”

  “I can’t remember that one,” said Josephine, “though I always thought Scott was a bit of a self-absorbed prick. Remind me how the story ends?”

  Grace couldn’t help laughing at the casual way her new friend had skewered one of their country’s most famous writers, as if he were nothing more than a boy down the street. “How does any Fitzgerald story end?” she lamented, trying to sound as worldly as she could. “Tragically. The only good thing about it is that Sandy’s instruction to think about my character’s own emotional history is coming quite easily to me for this role. I don’t have to think so far outside my own head!” She didn’t bother adding that she hated these roles that trapped her inside her own mind.

  Josephine studied Grace for a moment, then replied, “Is Gene what you really want?”

  It was such a simple question. And yet . . . Grace had never thought about Gene or anyone else in such terms.

  “I . . . I . . . ,” she stammered. “I don’t know.”

  Josephine lightly tapped her right index finger on Grace’s nose and replied, “That, ma chérie, is what you need to figure out.”

  * * *

  When To Be Continued closed after a dozen performances in May, Gene was precisely what Grace wanted, for he knew better than anyone how to forget troubles. Especially with Josephine back in Paris.

  “Even though I knew it wasn’t a masterpiece,” Grace said in the cab on their way to the Copa, “I still just wish it had played a bit longer.”

  “Just wait till High Noon comes out,” said Gene consolingly.

  “I’m tired of waiting, Gene! I’m twenty-two and I’ve been at this since I was seventeen.”

  Gene laughed gently. “That’s only five years, you know. And twenty-two is young.”

  “You say that like you’re so old. You’re only thirty-one!”

  “And thank God for that,” he said. “I’m not exactly getting the big break, either. You’ve got to remember why you’re in this, Grace.”

  “Why am I in it, Gene? Tell me because I can’t remember.”

  “You’re in it because you love the stale-smoke smell of the dressing rooms and the frigid air onstage that only the lights heat up. The way your footsteps echo on the wood before there are any sets up.”

  She did—she loved all those things. And she loved the applause: that precious appreciation that all the best actors craved but never admitted out loud they wanted, and some went so far as to decry. But all that felt out of reach. “Oh, Gene, what if I never make it?”

  Gene laughed and put his arm around her, and she set her head on his shoulder. “You have to think more about what making it really means to you, Grace. And in the meantime, find a way to enjoy getting there.”

  At the Copa, she and Gene danced for hours to the bright blaring of the brass band, and even stayed for the late-night comedy act. Then, in the early-morning taxi back to Gene’s place, as he snored lightly next to her, she asked herself what it would mean to follow Gene’s advice—to focus more on getting where she was going rather than feeling rotten all the time about not being there already. She did enjoy working with Sandy, and she liked the television work well enough. Even when she didn’t love the script, she enjoyed working with the other actors toward a common goal. She liked waking up every morning knowing she had work to do, for which she’d be paid well. Still, as much as she loved all that, something was missing. Whatever it was, it sent her into her habitual daydream of standing onstage at the end of a great performance, knowing she’d been seen at last.

  Chapter 9

  Seeing herself in High Noon was surreal. She rarely saw herself in the television dramas because they aired live, and she preferred to think of them as plays—ephemeral, each performance a moment in time that was over when the last line was said. Occasionally, she watched a reel of one with the other players but she’d learned this was usually an ego-stroking opportunity to criticize one’s own performance in a way designed to elicit the praise of the other actors: Oh, I did that scene so poorly! Just look at my face! To which someone would inevitably reply, I think you’re convincing. And your body conveys just enough anguish.

  Sitting in the dark movie theater in her gauzy new off-the-shoulder Balmain gown—very un–Amy Kane—Grace held her breath through the opening credits, knowing she was in one of the first scenes, getting married to Coop’s Marshal Kane. Stealing a sideways glance at Coop, who was sitting to her left in a fine tuxedo, she saw that his eyes were unwaveringly fixed on the screen, so that was what she did, too. But seeing her pale skin and hair practically glowing with naïveté was jarring. She knew her appearance was supposed to provide an innocent counterpoint to the vengeful, murderous plot underfoot, but she couldn’t help thinking she’d played it all wrong—too sweet, then too bitter. And she was so big on the screen. There was no hiding her performance.

  And yet Katy Jurado, who sat on her right, gently squeezed Grace’s hand at the end of her first scene. Grace looked down to see her own fingers clenched over the end of the armrest. Katy’s touch was such a surprise, she looked at the other woman, who smiled as if to say, “It’s rough, I know.”
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  Katy’s presence at her side made the rest of it easier to watch. In fact, after the initial shock wore off, Grace found herself completely absorbed in the film. The metronomic clip-clop in the sound track, which suggested both horses and the ticking of a clock toward noon, had a hypnotic effect on the black-and-white action. Coop was perfection itself, and for a few minutes, she was so absorbed, she actually forgot how the story ended. When she saw herself as Amy Kane enter the shoot-out in the final scenes, it was like watching someone else entirely. That bonneted blond couldn’t possibly be her—she was Marshal Kane’s wife, and Grace was proud of her.

  When the curtain swished to hide the screen and the lights went on, everyone applauded, and Grace looked around her feeling light-headed and disoriented. The rest of the cast clapped and nodded at one another, so she joined in, trading heartfelt compliments about performances. When Fred went to the stage, everyone stood up and whistled and clapped louder than Grace had heard in any theater—though maybe that was because she was in the audience, not in front of it.

  It wasn’t the applause of her daydreams, but it was deeply moving. She felt an intoxicating mixture of pride, camaraderie, and gratitude fizzing like bubbles in her chest. She couldn’t wait for everyone she loved to see the film. And she found herself hungry for another experience like it.

  * * *

  Did you like it, Mother? High Noon?” asked Grace, unable to resist but also on edge that her mother hadn’t brought it up immediately. The buoyant mood from the premiere had worn off, and now she felt nervy about what all her friends, and especially her family, would say about the movie and her performance.