by Vanda
This was crazy. I pushed myself away from her. “Okay.” Doorstop under the door. I was determined this woman would feel physical love. Even if it were only for a few seconds, she would have that memory. I threw my arm around her, pulling her flush against my body.
Before I could kiss her, her lips were all over mine. I ran my hands over her breasts and tried to move her to the lounge chair. We missed the chair and slipped onto the shiny onyx floor. I crawled on top of her. Not so easy with all those crinolines we wore. I pushed my hand under her dress, past the garter belt (thank God it wasn’t a girdle) and into her underpants. I was going to give this to her. She would have the memory of love shooting through her whole body.
Suddenly my breathing sped up. Oh, God, no, this is for her, not, not ... Oh, God, oh, God. She climaxed just as there was a loud knocking on the door.
Oh, no. I didn’t want to rush her afterglow, but those knocks were angry, and if they broke through … I mean, the Manager of Max Harlington’s new exclusive club found on the bathroom floor with her hand up …? I took my hand out. It wasn’t the kind of headline Max wanted, and Kilgallen and Winchell were out there. “You okay?” I whispered.
“Yes.” Tears rolled down her face.
“I don’t want to rush you, but there are some angry women outside that door who want very much to get in here.”
“Huh? Oh! Yes!” She jumped up.
We dusted and straightened ourselves. I washed my hands while she tucked a few strands of her hair that had come undone back under their bobby pins.
We avoided each other’s eyes in the mirror. Now that it was over, it all seemed rather embarrassing, and we still had to unlock the door and face those women who were going to be awful sore.
I tugged my dress back over my breasts and made sure it was in place. “Ready?” I asked Virginia. “Maybe we should pretend you were sick, and I was helping you.”
“You want me to act?” Virginia was thrilled. “I haven’t acted in ages. Yes! Yes!”
I led the way through a line of squawking women. Virginia leaned heavily on my shoulder, the back of her hand placed on her forehead moaning loudly. “Oh! Oh! I’m so ill. So ill! Illness wracks my fevered brow.”
I hurried Virginia to the main dining room before she gave a curtain speech.
Lili was singing, “After You’ve Gone.” I should have been back stage with her before she went on, comforting her, especially after what happened with LeRoy, but instead I was in the restroom doing—well ... Lili looked good up there. A real professional. Suddenly, Kilgallen and Winchell and all the rest were important to me, too.
I walked toward my table. Max, who stood in the corner listening to Lili, nodded at me. He was pleased. Mabel Mercer’s pianist replaced the pianist playing for Lili. Mabel Mercer joined Lili for the last verse. Wow! What a duo! Then Lili slipped from the stage, and Mabel Mercer sang, “It’s All Right.”
Virginia, already seated, looked at me shyly and whispered, “Thank you, Al.”
“Uh, yeah,” A blush crawled up my face. I picked up the linen napkin I’d thrown down on my seat when I went off with her. I was about to sit when it struck me like a lead ball dropping on top of my head. I’d been with a woman who wasn’t Juliana, and I liked it.
Chapter 31
April 1950
A SINKING IN my stomach stuck to me each day as I moved into the office at The Haven. Even Kilgallen’s and Winchell’s glowing reviews of Lili’s performance could not shut up the conversations that battled in my head. I worked on memorizing the monologue I had to deliver as my final assignment for my class. Lady MacBeth’s “Out Damn Spot.” I wished I’d chosen something less guilt-ridden. “You didn’t have an orgasm,” one voice said, “so it didn’t count as ‘being with a woman.’” Then the other voice would say, “But I’ve heard some butches never have orgasms.” Maybe I was a butch, like Shirl said. Then the first voice would say, “But I did it for Virginia’s sake. I was doing her a kindness.” Followed finally by, “Oh, yeah, you were a regular Girl Scout crawling around in Virginia’s underpants.”
I distracted myself with preparation for Juliana’s opening at the Copa. For days, I only saw her at a distance while she rehearsed. I set up interviews and photo sessions. Still, the voices nagged me. I couldn’t shut the damn things up.
Maybe I was a “butch.” Nah. Juliana was usually on top; she must be the butch. Juliana didn’t look like any butch I’d ever seen, and sometimes I was on top, and there were other times we’d be side by side. So, what was that?
I didn’t have any desire for a repeat performance with Virginia, but that little tryst on the lady’s room floor took away a safety I’d clung to for years. Juliana was no longer the only woman I’d been with. I was one of those perverts mothers warned their daughters about.
It was late afternoon. I’d finished my class about making a cheerful bulletin board for first graders. Dull. I headed for the school library to find a book on what I was. I wandered up the steps, trying to look nonchalant, not a care in the world, ho-hum. I swung my arms back and forth, flashing a dopey smile at the librarian and heading for the card catalogue. I looked around, making sure no one was about to peek over my shoulder and see what I was looking up. The library wasn’t crowded, only a few students sitting at tables poring over their books.
My hands shook when I reached for the drawer. I slid it out. My fingers touched the cards, moving toward HO—B … hobo, hobnob … skipped some … HO—C … hockey … skipped more … HO—L … hold-up, hollandaise sauce (recipes for), holly (Christmas, types of) holsters, holy days. Big breath. Here goes. My fingers touched “HO—M.”
“Hi, there,” a voice whispered in my ear.
“What!” I shoved the drawer closed and jumped back, my heart bursting out of my chest. It was Marty. “What are you doing sneaking up on a person like that?”
“Shh,” the librarian said.
“I didn’t sneak up on you," he whispered. “Are you all right?”
“Fine! I was—”
“Guess what? I got the lead in the spring play. Gabey in On the Town.”
“You did?” We bounced into each other’s arms, jumping up and down.
“Shh,” the librarian said.
“Let’s go outside,” Marty suggested. “Oh. Did you want to finish your research, first?”
“Not important.”
As soon as we left the library, Marty took off his tie and stuffed it in his jacket pocket.
* * *
“You got a piano,” I exclaimed when I walked into Marty’s apartment behind him.
“My mother and Aunt got it for me. It’s used and it keeps going out of tune, but it’s mine.” He hugged it as he sat down on the bench. The sheet music for On the Town was open to “Lonely Town.” I leaned over his shoulder to study the words.
“It’s what’s under the words that I’m having trouble with, the feelings. Since you have experience, I thought … I’ve never been that lonely.”
“No, you wouldn’t know, would you?” Moshe said, coming out of the kitchen sucking on an orange Popsicle. He leaned against the doorway molding, his too-small jacket open, his bow tie crooked. “You weren’t expecting me, were you?”
“No. I wasn’t.”
“I’m Marty’s roommate now.” Again, that sound of victory.
“Really?” I said.
“No. Not really,” Marty said. “He’s staying here till he finds his own place. Moshe, stop looking so dramatic. Alice is only here to help me work on this piece.”
“I bet that’s all she’s here for. I only know of one kinda girl that goes into men’s apartments—”
“Stop it,” Marty scolded. “She’s here to help me because she’s been on Broadway.”
“So, I’ve heard, and heard, and heard,” he said rhythmically, moving toward the door. “And heard, and heard …” He slid into the hallway and pounded down the steps. “And heard, and heard, and heard …”
“You let him move in
here, after he beat you up in the quadrangle?”
“He didn’t beat me up. I held my own.”
“I don’t care who won. Why is he here?”
“His parents kicked him out. They can't stand how religious he’s become, and they’re religious. What was I sposed to do? Leave him out in the street? He wasn’t always like this. The war … it did something to him.”
“You were in the war, and you don’t act like that.”
“Things don’t bother me the way they do him. He’s terribly sensitive.”
“Oh, yeah, I can see how ‘sensitive’ he is.”
“He is. We both went to Bronx Science High, but he didn’t have any friends.”
“I can’t imagine why.”
“The school was wrong for him. He’d rather write poetry than do science. I don’t think he’s written one poem since the war.
“You care about him a lot, don’t you?” I said.
“He’s an army buddy. I mean, we grew up together, but in the army you … Well, your buddies are—they’re, uh … He’s a buddy. Come on. Help me with my song.” He played a chord and sang.
* * *
Later, I went back to the library. My heart pounding, I searched the card catalog—nothing. Then I thumbed through the stacks, but again, nothing. How could we be such a burden to the world, and, yet, in the library we didn’t even exist? As I was about to leave, I saw a list of reserved books, the books the librarian kept on the shelves behind her desk. I requested the one titled Textbook of Abnormal Psychology.
I sat with the book at one of the tables and pored over the Table of Contents—nothing. I was about to give up when I thought to take a quick look at the index. I found it! It was listed under “Disorders of the Amatory Desire.” The writer called homosexuality “undesirable,” but if you only did it once in a while it wasn’t abnormal.
That’s good, I thought. Still, he said, once you started doing it, it was easy to get the habit, and that was abnormal. There was no cure.
Juliana and I didn’t do it often, so maybe we didn’t have the habit. Of course we did. We only didn’t do it much because we didn’t see each other much, or Richard was in the room. If I could, I’d do it with her every day.
Chapter 32
I RECLINED IN my office chair at The Haven, my feet propped up on an open drawer, sipping my tea, trying to look relaxed. All pretense. I had hundreds of things to do. My desk was piled with papers to be read, but I wanted to quiet the churning inside me. How could I have been alive for twenty-seven years and not known I was this thing I was?
I’d never fit in anywhere, but now? Guilt flooded me like a broken spigot. But guilt about what? Juliana? The best part of me? Virginia? Such a good soul. Then what? I had no answer. Only the vague feeling that in some way I was tainted.
I held my breath as I picked up the New York Times and read “Perverts Called Government Peril.”
“Will they never stop this?” I punched the article with my fist over and over. “Stop it! Stop it!”
* * *
I stood in the middle of the empty room of The Haven—staring into space as the voices battled in my head.
“Al, are you all right?” Scott said from behind me.
I turned. “Fine.”
“I finished up the books.” Max had made Scott our accountant. He stood in his shirtsleeves, tie loose, putting on his jacket. “I was going to get a cup of coffee. You want to join me?”
“Can’t. I have to pick up some new publicity photos.”
“Okay. See you later.”
“Wait, Scott. Yes. I would like to have coffee with you.” I ran toward my office. “Wait. I’ll get my coat. Do you mind making a side trip for the pictures?”
“That’s fine.” He put on his hat. “I’ll meet you out front.”
When I opened my office door I found Bertha, the hatcheck girl, standing at my desk. “Bertha, what are you doing here?”
“Dusting.” She held up a feather duster. “Haven’t you noticed how clean your office has been? I come in here and tidy up every day before I’m on, but only when you’re not here. I wouldn’t want to bother you.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re an important person.”
“Not really, but why are you dusting my office? We have cleaning staff for that.”
“Oh. I didn’t know.”
“Haven’t you seen them every day before we open?”
“I want to help you. I’ll finish this up for today and find something else to do. This came.” She reached for a large envelope that lay on my desk.
“Hatcheck girls don’t bring the mail in either.” I took the envelope from her.
“Yes, of course.” She hurried from my office.
I supposed I was being hard on her, but she gave me the creeps. There was no return address on the envelope. I remembered Scott waiting in front of the building, so I grabbed my hat and coat, tucked the envelope under my arm, and ran to meet him.
As we walked down Forty-second, I asked, “How’s your psychoanalysis going? Oh, is it okay to ask that? I don’t mean to pry.” The barkers were out in full force, yelling for customers to come into their stores for the sales.
“That’s okay,” Scott said. “I think it’s going good. Maybe …”
We pushed through a crowd trying to get into Hector’s Cafeteria and the Claridge Hotel. The sidewalks were choking with bodies bumping into each other, winter coats making our girth swell. In amongst the exhaust from cars and taxis, I could smell the perfume of the women passing by. Sometimes, I’d get a wiff of the chestnuts the vendors roasted on the corner. The crowds were so thick on the sidewalks, I almost stumbled over the legless Vet in the wagon. “What? Ya effin’ blind?” he yelled up at me. Taxis honked and darted in and out of traffic. Buses and cars squealed so loud, I thought for sure someone was going to careen into someone, but they didn’t.
“Maybe we can talk about it over coffee,” Scott continued, his protective arm around me so I didn’t get swallowed by the masses. “You know the Starlight Lounge?”
“Yes. Haven’t been there in awhile, but I know it.”
“They have a good piano player. Want to go there?”
“Sure. Let’s take the bus.”
We hopped onto a green and white city bus and took it up to Fifty-Seventh. “Wait here,” I said outside the Carnegie building. “I’ll be right down.”
When I entered the studio, Johnny was playing one of his new love tunes. He’d been turning out songs like crazy for the new act. Juliana leaned against the piano, totally lost in her song. She wore her pale-green day dress with the slight flare and matching pale-green heels.
Richard came up to me. “Beautiful, huh?”
“Oh, yeah.” I swooned. “I mean the song.” Catching myself. “The song’s beautiful.”
“What do you think of these?” He held his lit cigarette between his teeth and handed me a brown envelope. “They’re the proofs for the new publicity photos. I want to see which ones you want to use.”
While I slid them out, Juliana smiled at me and waved, but continued to sing. I was Cock Robin with an arrow shooting through my heart. I finished sliding out the eight-by-tens. They were of Juliana in a blue Army Nurse Corp uniform, only she didn’t look like any Army Nurse I’d ever seen. A few of them focused on her breasts, the tie undone, the buttons of her blouse unbuttoned to the center of her chest, showing her cleavage. Others were leg shots, where she was showing more leg than an Army Nurse would have dared show during the war.
“I don’t know, Richard.”
“It hit me a couple weeks ago that she was in the war. She’s a genuine war heroine; she was right on the front lines.”
“But she wasn’t a nurse; she was a singer, and the war was serious business. Do you really think we should use it like this? I mean, look at how much skin she’s showing.”
“Yeah, that kind of bothered me too, but you were the one who said we had to make Juliana’s act, uh—pard
on me—sexy, but keep it subtle. This is gonna work. Look at Marlene Dietrich. The war’s working for her.”
I put the photos away. I had to discuss this with Max.
Juliana was singing “Manhattan.” I waved good-bye, but she was busy flirting with Johnny. Ouch. I hurried down in the elevator to Scott.
We walked around the corner to the Starlight. The lighting was soft, and there were cushioned seats. Only a few patrons were scattered about at different tables, and one couple huddled over a beer at the bar, speaking in hushed tones. The piano player played “Embraceable You.”
As we entered, Scott took off his hat, and we followed the waitress toward the lounge. He stood by the table, listening to the piano player. “He’s good,” I said. “And cute.”
“I didn’t notice that.”
“I bet you didn’t.”
“Well, uh—what’s that you got there?” he asked as he helped me off with my coat.
“These are photos, and this came in the mail today. No return address.”
“Mysterious.”
I opened the “mysterious” envelope and pulled out a folded newspaper. The Long Islander. “Gosh, it’s been ages since I’ve seen this. I wonder who—” I shook the envelope to see if a card fell out. Nothing. “This paper is important in Long Island. Stories about the locals. Who’s getting married, buying a house, graduating, just died. Of course, I may not know anyone anymore. It’s so built up with Levittown and the other developments going up where the potato fields used to be.”
The waitress came over. “What can I bring you?”
“Did you want something to eat?” Scott asked.
“No, but I’d rather have tea instead of coffee.”
“One coffee, one tea,” Scott said to the waitress, then turned to me. “Let’s see it.”
“You’ll be bored.”
“We have a paper like that in Pickle Paw. The Independent. Put out by one guy in a dusty office on Main Street. All the local gossip he can fit into four pages. It looks like your town is doing better than that.”
“Walt Whitman founded it in Huntington where I was born. He used to walk around delivering his paper and talking to customers, and then the next week he’d print the gossip he’d heard the week before.”