Jay asked if José was drunk yet. Randy, Jay, and Sam had decided to replace him as soon as they could find another bass player. José suspected that they were dumping him so he had become moody and unreliable. Lately every time they played, he messed up at least one song.
Randy said, low to Jay, “He’d better keep his act together tonight. If we lose the bucks because of him, he’ll have to walk back to the Hamptons.”
They would do four songs and if they won, an encore of two more. Normally, Jay and Randy would each sing lead on one and Lilly on two. Lilly told them she didn’t feel well, so she would only sing one song.
“What’s the matter Lillypad? VD?” José asked.
Lilly walked away and sat on the piano bench to watch them set up for the show. She knew Randy was speeding and when Jay started laughing wildly as he set up the soundboard, she knew he was on something, too.
“Trippo and the speedballs this ought to be some night,” Lilly spoke to the air.
Sam stopped adjusting the drums and came over to play his sticks on Lilly’s head
José walked over. “You could shake it tonight. Make some points with the audience. You should wear something …”
Lilly interrupted him. “José, you’re the burlesque part of the show. We could do something different, though. You could try to play the same song as the rest of us.”
“You’re a fucking cunt, you know that?” José said.
“Hey! That’s no way to talk to my sister,” Patrick said from below the stage where Hillary and Tony had made their way.
“Hi, Patrick,” Lilly said happily. She could see he was still pissed off. “Unfortunately, he’s the only bass player we have,”she said as she slid off the stage.
Patrick looked at her, “You let him talk to you like that?”
“Patrick, he’s a second grader calling names. He can’t return a good insult. We have to make allowances,” Lilly said quietly, imploring him not to rock the boat. Tony had already learned that she could hold her own with the band.
Lilly knew something was wrong by the end of the show. On the ride home, Hillary chatted about how strange it was to drive the Long Island Expressway with no traffic. Lilly thought of the conversation she had had with her mother in May when she and Tony had split up.
Mrs. O’Dwyer, by way of comforting her, had said, “It never would have worked out between you and Tony. If you had gotten married, you would never have been able to consummate it.”
Tony and Lilly had survived Mutt and Jeff jokes. Lilly wondered at three a. m. if they could survive inability to have sex. Lilly remembered Marsha with a jolt. Could gonorrhea be so quick? The dull ache turned to cramping pains. Hillary glanced nervously at her normally talkative friend
“Lilly, are you ok?”
“I feel awful. My stomach’s killing me.”
Hillary reached over to touch her face. “Damn you feel hot. Why don’t you go to sleep?” Hillary drove faster.
Lilly got home at four a. m. and stumbled up the hall.
“Lillian,” her mother called, “Did you win? It’s so late. I don’t think this band is a good idea.”
“Hi, Mom.” Lilly walked into her mother’s room. “We won. I feel terrible. I’m going to bed.”
“Lillian, have you been drinking?”
“No, Mom. Patrick came to the show. Ask him.”
“Lillian, I’m asking you. You don’t look so well. Come here. You’re feverish.”
“Mom, I’m going to bed. Good night. Thanks.”
“For what?” Mrs. O’Dwyer thought Lilly was being sarcastic.
“For asking if we won. Waking up. I don’t know. Checking up. Night.” Lilly left the room.
Mrs. O’Dwyer had tears in her eyes. She didn’t understand why she and Lillian were always at loggerheads. It seemed that whenever one was offering an olive branch, the other was stretching her claws.
Ann and Colleen worked as chambermaids. They woke for work at nine. Lilly was sitting against the dresser dozing.
“Ann, she must be really drunk. Let’s get her into bed before Mom sees.”
They pulled her arms, “Come on, Lil.”
“No, I can’t lie down. It makes my stomach hurt more.”
“Where does it hurt?” Colleen asked
“Right at my belly button.”
Colleen went to get her mother. Ann sat beside Lilly and hugged her.
Mrs. O’Dwyer came in, and Ann said, “She’s sick Mom.”
“We’ll take her to Southampton Hospital. Get her dressed. Colleen, the twins are playing out back. You’ll have to care for them. Call into work.”
Lilly lay in the back seat in the fetal position. Mrs. O’Dwyer said to Ann, “If it’s an ectopic pregnancy, I’ll have him arrested.”
Lilly had appendicitis. Mrs. O’Dwyer, half thinking the hospital was covering for her, asked, “Why wasn’t the pain in the lower right side? She said it hurt in the middle.”
The surgeon told her, “It followed a nerve pathway.”
Mrs. O’Dwyer remembered her husband speaking of referred pain. Lilly woke nauseous and groggy on Monday night. Ann was alone with her while Mrs. O’Dwyer called home with dinner instructions.
Ann asked, “Do you want me to call Tony?”
“No, what can he do? Be in Yonkers and feel bad? Would you call Hillary though? Ask her to come here tomorrow?”
“Sure, Lil. Go back to sleep.”
“Thanks, Ann.”
Hillary bounced into the room the following day, “Lilly you do things right. Everyone decided you were nervous and that’s why you only sang one song. They were sitting around and José was being his slimy bastard self when Ann called. Jay spoke with her and came back to the living room. José said, ‘I’ll bet she’ll play sick every time it’s important.’ When José was finished, Jay turned to me and said ‘Hillary you’ll have to go to Southampton hospital tomorrow. Lilly had her appendix out.’ And he got up and went outside to swim. You should have been there.”
“I wish I were. Hillary, come down here.” Lilly pointed to her bed. She continued in a low voice, “Could you call Planned Parenthood and make an appointment for me? I’m going home on Thursday or Friday. I’ve got to get on the pill.”
Hillary went out to make the call and then returned. “You have an appointment for Friday at the clinic in Riverhead”
Mrs. O’Dwyer arrived, and the three played gin. The surgeon made rounds and told them Lilly would be released Friday. Mrs. O’Dwyer turned to Lilly and said, “It’ll be quite late before I can come get you. Francine and Kelly’s swimming lessons end Friday, and they’ll have swimming tests.”
“Mrs. O’Dwyer, I have to be in Southampton Friday, anyway. I could give her a ride home.”
They arranged for Lilly to be released to Hillary, with the head nurse sending Mrs. O’Dwyer to billing. Mrs. O’Dwyer returned before she left.
“Lillian I forgot. This letter came for you today.” She handed Lilly an envelope, then continued, “You saw Tony on Sunday, and he is coming out on Saturday.”
Lilly felt obliged to open it in front of her mother. It was one sheet of paper, folded over a vibrantly colored feather.
The note said: “Lilly, I love you, Tony”
“Rather short?” Mrs. O’Dwyer asked.
“Short, but sweet. He’s not very wordy.”
Lilly feigned tiredness because she wanted to be alone to savor the note and touch the words. Hillary understood because her own love with Jay was still so new and intense. Being happy in love was a strong cementing bond between the two women.
Lilly was on the pediatrics floor, sharing a room with three other girls. All of her roommates were within a year of her age. Lilly was the only one who worked and the only who had a boyfriend of any duration. Lilly cracked jokes with the nurses. She felt more a peer to them than to her roommates. She began to dread going back to school with “the kids.”
Lilly’s roommates compared tans and talked about boys.
Tony had stopped being a boy back in May. When Lilly had made references to band members as boys, Hillary had objected saying, “Lilly they are hardly boys.”
Lilly left the hospital with a small bandage on her belly. Hillary drove her to Riverhead to Planned Parenthood. Lilly looked at the rickety old house with peeling paint and a shutter hanging off and for the first time felt cheap. Her appointment time was for ten o’clock, but she quickly learned the nine other women waiting shared the appointment time, and the doctor wasn’t there yet.
Hillary and Lilly sat in shocked silence. Hillary had gone to a private gynecologist and had never been herded in her life. Lilly was called to speak to a counselor. The counselor asked her age.
“Seventeen,” she lied.
The counselor asked questions about her sex life. Lilly wasn’t about to tell her that her sex life hadn’t really started yet. The counselor told her of different types of birth control. Lilly insisted on the pill.
She’d felt like a thing sitting there. The examination made her feel like a cunt. The doctor never looked at her face and spoke incessantly to the nurse. He had an air of resigned disapproval. The speculum was freezing, and he said impatiently, “Would you please relax.”
She stopped to get her pills and prescription and then almost ran from the building. Hillary saw her from the waiting room and followed. Lilly rushed to the car and locked her door. Hillary got in and drove.
“Did you see Love with a Proper Stranger?” Hillary asked.
“Yes.”
“Do you remember the dirty, back-room abortionist scene when Natalie Wood ran out?”
Lilly relaxed a little, “Yes.”
Hillary timed the punch line: “So that’s a clinic. Thank God, I’m rich.”
They both laughed.
Lilly slept the afternoon away. Since her sisters always borrowed her clothes, she couldn’t keep her pills in her drawers. She tucked them into the envelope from Tony because even if it were open season on clothes, letters were private.
Lilly broached the subject of the band at dinner. Mrs. O’Dwyer asked if she had rested well.
“Yes, very. In fact, I feel fine. Actually, the band would like me to sing harmony tonight.”
“Tonight? You were released from the hospital today.”
“Mom, I’ll sing harmony, and if I get too tired Hillary will drive me home. You like Hillary. She’s so responsible.”
“I’ll think about it.”
Mrs. O’Dwyer had invited a few of Lilly’s friends for the weekend as a surprise late birthday celebration. When Lilly told her mother that Tony was coming out on Saturday, Mrs. O’Dwyer knew he said that to throw Lilly off the track. In fact, Tony, Frank, and Mike were coming out that night with Frank’s current girlfriend. They couldn’t leave until after work so wouldn’t arrive until midnight. They would go to the bar where Cuando was playing and then come home with Lilly.
Ann was going out with a fisherman they called Fish. He would take her and Colleen to the bar to meet the crew from Yonkers.
Mrs. O’Dwyer said, “You can as long as you promise to come home if you tire.”
The only proof of age Frank could get was for someone named Elgin Montgomery, and so everyone in the car called him Elgin or Monty. Sheila, his current girl, was nineteen and worked as a cashier in a bank. Tony and Mike were impressed that Frank could snare an older woman.
When they arrived, the place was jammed, but Ann, Colleen, and Fish had already gotten two tables together. The band was playing, and people were dancing.
Colleen said, “They are so good. I didn’t know they were so good.”
Hillary came up behind Tony. “Hi, handsome, guys. What are you doing here? I thought you were coming tomorrow.” She sat across from Tony and saw Marsha walking towards them.
Hillary said quickly, “Have you ever been stung by a dead bee?”
Tony answered, “I saw that movie last week. Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Great flick.”
“That doesn’t answer my question. Have you ever been stung by a dead bee? Cause you’re about to be.”
“What?”
“Hello Tony, Mike,” Marsha said. “You didn’t say you knew them,”
“You didn’t ask,” Hillary said sweetly.
“Oh Christ,” Mike said. He and Tony both knew Marsha had been talking.
Marsha said as she sat down, “Mike has your vocabulary shrunk? You used to be such a good talker.”
Colleen sat staring at Mike.
“Your vocabulary obviously hasn’t.” Tony coldly locked her gaze.
Marsha thought she had them on the run. “Tony, what’s your last name?”
“Mudd. That’s M-U-D-D,” Tony said. Frank laughed.
“Kind of like your reputation,” Hillary said.
The band finished the song and the set. Marsha stayed put because Randy would go where Jay went, and Jay would stop to get Hillary. Lilly walked right by without seeing them, but Frank grabbed her arm.
“Excuse me,” Lilly said brushing his arm off but not looking at him.
“That’s OK. I always grab piano players,” Frank said.
“Frank! What are doing here?” She looked up.
She walked to Tony, said “Hi” shyly, and sat on his lap since all of the seats were gone. She gave him a little kiss, and then looked at Marsha.
Marsha said to Tony, “I go with someone in the band, too.”
Hillary, who was drinking wine, said, “That’s not saying much. He’ll go with anyone who breathes.”
Lilly added, “Heavily.”
Marsha stood, “I don’t know why you two are so bitchy to me.”
Lilly purred, “You’re easy to be bitchy to. Randy’s outside.”
Marsha left.
Hillary said, “Should we be nicer to her?”
Lilly said, “Don’t push it Sullivan. So why are you all here? My mother’s going to have a bird when we all walk in.”
Tony answered, “Your mother’s expecting us.”
Mike, recovered from the run-in with Marsha, said, “Happy Birthday.”
“Birthday? That was a week and a half ago.”
Ann laughed, “Then she certainly surprised you.”
Tony whispered, “Why are you so skinny.”
Lilly whispered back, “Skinny? I’m not skinny. Besides, a gentleman never comments on a ladies … err … proportions.”
Colleen said, “She had appendicitis when she got back from Yonkers. She just got out of the hospital today.”
Ann added, “She’s not supposed to be playing, only singing.”
Tony gently felt along her side, then looked at her. “Do you have any other parts you don’t need? Your tonsils in May, appendix in July. What’s it going to be in November?”
“I’ll think of something. Frank, aren’t you going to introduce your friend?” Lilly said.
“Sure. Sheila, this is Lilly, and one of them is Ann, and the other is Colleen, but I’m not sure which. They’re your hosts.”
“Smooth, Frank. Real smooth,” Mike laughed.
Randy came up carrying a bowl of milk. “Here, I thought you might be thirsty. Lick your paws and enjoy yourself.”
“Lil, have you been catty?” Tony asked.
“Well, it’s like this. I had three, count them three, dippy roommates, and I had to be nice. A girl’s got to stay sharp. I’m not going to play the last set,” she told Randy.
“Feeling all right?” Tony asked.
“It’s a little sore.”
Tony and Randy began talking about band dates. Lilly turned to Frank and Sheila. Colleen, who had given up her seat to Randy, was on Mike’s lap trying to find out about Marsha. Tony slowly undid the hair tie at the end if Lilly’s braid, and very carefully, so she wouldn’t notice, unraveled her hair.
Sam was the first back to the stage, and he played a little lick to call the others. Jay walked by and tapped Lilly’s arm. “C’mon, Lilbit. Hey, Tony.”
Lilly got up and followe
d him.
“I thought you weren’t going back,” Randy said.
She shrugged, felt her hair move, and gave Tony an exasperated look as she walked to the stage.
Fish and Ann left during the last set. That left Tony, Lilly, Mike, Colleen, Frank, and Sheila to ride scrunched together. Lilly fell asleep after they drove a block. Tony started to lower her head to his lap to sleep.
Lilly jumped up, “Jeez, that’s sore.”
Mike and Colleen took Frank and Sheila into the house while Tony and Lilly lagged behind.
“I went to Planned Parenthood,” Lilly said quietly.
“When did you have time?”
“Today.”
“But I thought you were in the hospital today.”
“I went from one to the other. Hillary took me. I’m really pooped. It’s been some day.”
“I guess. Is it OK to touch you? I mean with your appendix?”
“I don’t know. Maybe we’ll find out.” Lilly stood on the porch a step above him and still had to reach up to kiss him.
Mrs. O’Dwyer opened the door. “It must be convenient for you that both houses have porch stairs. Lillian, say goodnight and go to bed.”
“Yes, Mom. Hey, Mom, you could have had higher porches with higher steps.”
Inside Mrs. O’Dwyer said to Sheila, “You’ll stay with Ann, Colleen, and Lillian. Where’s Ann?”
Colleen answered, “She and Fish stopped for ice cream.”
Ann got in an hour later. “What a jerk! He has a net maneuver. He’s all over you.”
“Did you throw him back?” Lilly asked.
Colleen said, “There’s plenty of fish in the sea.”
Sheila joined in, “He didn’t seem like much of a catch.”
“Such corny jokes. Remind me to keep away from fishermen,” Ann said.
Lilly fell asleep thinking of Tony sleeping right down the hall in her brothers’ room. She wondered what it would be like to sleep beside him.
Tony spent the next day trying to be alone with Lilly. They all went for a picnic at the beach near Lilly’s home on Gardener’s Bay. That night Mike and Colleen went to the movies using the O’Dwyer car, and Frank and Sheila went back to the bar with Tony. Sheila was getting on Tony’s nerves. She whined in an “aren’t I cute?” way.
A Yonkers Kinda Girl Page 11