[Juliana 02.0] Olympus Nights on the Square

by Vanda

“Yes. It’s a pleasure.” I could see in Juliana’s face she was struggling to be kind by not making a joke about her last name.”

  Lucille burst out with, “I can’t believe I’m standing this close to you, and you actually had half my name in your mouth.”

  Juliana looked at me, and I knew she wanted to say something she shouldn’t. I shook ‘no’ at her. She tossed her hair over her shoulder and kept smiling.

  “So—” I said. “Thank you, Lucille, for bringing these. You better get back to the office now.”

  “Oh. Yes.” She was still staring at Juliana. “Uh, if you ever want me to play the piano for your rehearsals, I could. I’d love to.”

  “Thank you,” Juliana said.

  Lucille backed out of the room, a huge smile on her face. She was happy. Happy just because she’d met Juliana. I had a little something to do with that happiness. My heart swelled with gratitude.

  Chapter 75

  September 1955

  “AL HUFFMAN HERE,” I said into the phone. “Yes, Richard, everything’s set. You just need to get yourself to the dock on time and everything’ll —. Hold on a minute.”

  I held the phone away from my ear and listened to the sound of Chopin drifting through the door. Scott was playing. He rarely played. It was good to hear him.

  “Uh, Richard, I have to see about something. I’ll call you back. I promise. When have I ever not called you back? Try to relax. Have a cup of tea.”

  The song changed from Chopin to a piece Johnny had written, one of the songs Juliana had recorded a couple years ago.

  I stepped into the main room, empty tables, the chairs all awry. On the stage, in shirtsleeves, Scott sat at the rehearsal piano playing. The sounds he made of Johnny’s song were magical. He smiled as I approached. “Did you know Johnny used Chopin as a model for this song?”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Very skillfully.”

  “You’re much better than Pete.”

  “Pete’s not bad.”

  “But he’s not growing at the same pace as Juliana. He can’t keep up with her, and Johnny goes in and out of the drunk tank. We can’t send either of them to Paris. I’m really hurting for a pianist.”

  “I’ll work with Pete. Get him ready.”

  “There’s no time. They’re leaving next week. You’re going to Paris.”

  “I can’t.” He stopped playing. “I’m the accountant for Max’s two clubs. What’s he supposed to do if I take off for Paris?”

  “He’ll find another accountant. They’re a lot easier to find than accomplished pianists. While he’s looking, Lucille can take care of the books, but you’re going to Paris.”

  “I can’t play jazz and pop in a nightclub.”

  “Your grandma asked me to hire you way back in December. To keep you out of the looney bin.”

  “Grandma doesn’t understand.”

  “You’re going to Paris,” I told him. “Go home, tell Max, and pack. You don’t have much time.”

  “But Al—”

  “Excuse me, Al,” Lucille said through her half-open door. “Mr. Styles is on the phone.”

  “That man will be the death of me. I ran to my office. “Yes, Richard,” I said into the phone. “I told you, everything is set. At the dock at three. No, I can’t see you off. I wrote the whole itinerary down in the notes I gave you last night, so I don’t think there’s anything more to talk about. How about I have Lucille meet you down there? Will that make you feel better? Good. Of course, I’ll miss you. I’ll miss you both. I know she’s going to be a hit. Call me when you get to your hotel.” I hung up the phone. My heart fell into my stomach. She’ll be gone soon.

  * * *

  A ringing cut through my unpeaceful sleep. I groped for the phone. “Richard? What time is it? Five? I went to bed at four. I run a club, remember? What’s the matter?

  I sat up in bed. “I can’t. I have to stay here. Or … well … if it’s an emergency. Hang on a minute.”

  I jumped out of bed and threw on my robe, yelling, “Max! Max!”

  I ran down the stairs and into the living room. “Max! Max!”

  Max and Scott charged out of their room and met me in the living room. Scott was tying his robe. Max stood there naked, flapping his arms. “What happened? Is there a fire?” Stalks of his hair stood straight up. “Are you hurt?”

  “No. Richard’s on the phone.”

  “Jesus, Al, you woke us for that?”

  “It’s important, but you probably should put something on. I can’t talk to my boss when he’s dressed like that.”

  “But this is my best outfit.” He turned and sprinted into his room. He came back with one of his dull bathrobes on. “Okay, so what’s so urgent?”

  “Richard can’t go to Paris. His mother got admitted to the hospital with a heart attack. He wants me to go. Please, Max!”

  “Can’t Ben go?”

  “Ben’s just her agent. With about a thousand clients. He’s not going to take off for Paris. I have to look out for her. She needs that. Lucille can handle things here. She’ll do a terrific job. And I can give her instructions from Paris.”

  He crossed his arms over his chest. “Maybe Lucille will do such a ‘terrific’ job I won’t need you when you come back.”

  “Don’t be like that,” Scott said. “Let her go. She can look after me, too.”

  “You want her to go?” Max asked.

  “Yes.”

  “I’m going to lose both of you at the same time?”

  “Oh, honey,” Scott said, putting his arms around him. “We’ll write and call so often you won’t have time to get lonely.”

  “Lonely? Who’s talking about lonely? I need someone to work in my clubs.” He pointed at me. “You’re going to be working extra hard when you come back. And you …” He put his arms around Scott’s neck. “You’re going to be working extra hard too.” They kissed.

  I dashed back to my room. “Richard, yes! I can go,” I yelled into the phone, jumping up and down like a kid. “Oh, that’s right. You did only book the one stateroom on the ship for you and Juliana. And there is only the one suite in the Paris Hotel. Oh, well,” I sighed. Quite dramatically. “It will be horribly inconvenient and crowded, no privacy, but we must all sacrifice for Juliana’s career, mustn’t we? Please do give my love to your mother.”

  End of Book 2

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  Thank you!

  Behind the Scenes of a Book:

  The Well-Deserved Thank Yous

  I WANT TO thank all of you who read the first novel in the series, Juliana (Book 1: 1941-1944). Coming from a background of playwriting, publishing my first novel has been an exciting adventure, and you have been very encouraging.

  Writing a book and creating characters is very much like having a child and preparing that child to meet the world. You want so much for that kid to be accepted and embraced, even when their behavior is sometimes not the best. The comments
I received from readers who wrote to me personally and/or those who wrote reviews of the book let me know, that yes, my child was being accepted and sometimes loved. No writer or Mother/Father could wish for more.

  Just like with the first book, a great many people were instrumental in helping me turn this second volume in the series, Olympus Nights on the Square: LGBT Life in the Early Post-War Years into a reality. Some of these people I even met on the Internet. It’s popular today to malign the Internet, and certainly, it has caused a great many problems, but I think it is important to remember that the Internet is a tool. How this tool is used is up to us. For a researcher, the Internet is a blessing. One reason is that it puts me in touch with so many experts I would never meet without it. One of those experts that helped with the current book was Tom Genova.

  Tom has a website, http://www.tvhistory.tv, which is filled with fascinating facts about the evolution of television, from before 1935 to the present. As helpful as his wonderful website was there are certain questions a novelist can only get answered by interacting with a human being. One such question was, “What was it really like to get your first television set during those early days, and maybe even be the only one on your block to have one?” That type of knowledge is rarely recorded in research texts. Through email, Tom did a marvelous job enlightening me with the kinds of details that spark a writer’s imagination. I could not have written my two “TV chapters” without him.

  I also met Arlene (Friedman) Simone on the Internet, and she has enriched my life. I introduced Arlene to my readers in the first book under the subheading “The Experience of a ‘Normal’ Who Lived During That Time Period.” For Olympus Nights on the Square, she taught me just how difficult it was for women in the fifties. Arlene attended City College of New York at about the same time as my main character, Al. City was considered a progressive school with progressive ideas. They were the first to have an on-campus fraternity that accepted members of any religion or race. Former Secretary of State Colin Powell attended City in the 1950s. City also produced more Nobel Laureates than any other public institution.

  However, this progressive institution wasn’t progressive enough to know that all women did not want to be schoolteachers. Yet, that was the only major open to them at City in the early fifties. Arlene was drawn to the theatre arts and music. While at City she took mostly theatre courses and performed in most of the school’s productions. She played the part of “Miss Turnstiles” in On the Town, a demanding singing and dancing role.

  Ultimately, she left City without receiving her degree, along with a number of her female classmates. They had no interest in becoming schoolteachers, either. (Arlene later received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees at another institution.) She pursued her singing career until she married. And wow, can that woman sing! I had the honor of meeting Arlene in person when she came to New York to sing in a cabaret. She’s currently working on an album dedicated to her daughter. The working title is: Together/Wherever.

  I didn’t meet KT Sullivan on the Internet. I met her after she’d completed a set of songs celebrating Doric Wilson’s (the first produced gay playwright) fiftieth year in theater. KT is a professional singer, often seen around the country in cabarets and theater. She took time out of her busy schedule to talk to me about her life as a cabaret singer. She later invited me to her home for an evening in which her friends gathered to listen to her try out a few new numbers.

  KT is a marvelous singer and comedienne. What an honor it was to be part of that. One of her friends who happened to be there that night was Tiger Lily. The honest-to-goodness original Tiger Lily (really Sondra Lee) from the original live TV show of Peter Pan with Mary Martin. I’m sure a lot of you are too young to understand the significance of that, but it was one of my big WOW moments. We even exchanged a few emails. I actually emailed Tiger Lily! Oh, my God

  So much can go wrong in the long process of writing a book, and I am grateful to the people who volunteer to keep me on track. One of these people was my Beta Reader: Arran H. Kendrick. He read this book while it was still an unedited Word document and let me know about typos, grammatical screw-ups and all my other errors. He also had the job of letting me know if any part of my story wasn’t working. He was very thorough, which I am very grateful for.

  Then there was my Editor: Danielle O. from Write My Wrongs Editing (danielleo@writemywrongsediting.com) I so much appreciate her hawk-eyed vision for checking every detail of my work and her efforts to make it flawless. But most importantly I appreciate her tremendous support. Her cheerleading of Olympus Nights on the Square came at a time when I really needed it. Danielle’s support gave me the courage to continue despite adversity.

  This year like last, we continued The Juliana Project. Actors performed chapters from the novel at the Duplex Night Club for an invited audience. However, this year we ceased the grueling task of trying to put up the show once a month. This time, we put together one big show that covered (with cuts) most of Juliana Book I: Before the War. This performance was entitled: Juliana: In the Beginning.

  We performed the show before a sold-out audience. The person most responsible for getting this longer, more elaborate show up and running was our director, Ray Fritz. There would have been no show without his creativity, persistence and hard work. Thank you, Ray. It was a great show!

  We also had a marvelous troupe of dedicated actors involved with the show: Allison Linker (Al), Annie-Sage Whitehurst (Juliana), Ray Allen Fritz (Danny) Ali Ryan (Aggie), Tyler Gardella (Dickie), Matt Biagini (Max), Lucy McMichael (Virginia Sales), Sharlene Hartman (Nan Blakstone), Radio Announcers: Hilary Walker & Jacques Mitchell (Veronica Hudson & Guy Cooper). Kathleen O’Neill was our videographer, Armando Bravi our lighting technician and Thomas Honeck was the ever helpful general manager of the Duplex. A special thank you to Maria Varvaglione at Metropolitan College of New York for arranging space at the school so we could rehearse this monster show.

  The actors and I were also graciously invited to other venues around town to read from Juliana. The places where we read were: The Kennedy Center (From page to stage). Thank you, Deb Randall, Artistic Director of the Venus Theater, The Bureau of General Services—Queer Division @ The LGBT Community Center. Thank you, Donnie Jochum and Greg Newton; The Lesbian Herstory Archives. Thank you, Flavia Rando; Hudson Community College. Thank you, Michelle Vitale, Director of Cultural Affairs & Jacques Mitchell; Henrietta Hudson Bar. Thank you, Liz McMullen; Metropolitan College of New York.Thank you, Beth Dunphe and Directors of Metropolitan College Library, Directors: Kate Adler and Emma Moore.

  Actors, not mentioned above, who joined us in these venues and added their talent by reading from the book were Molly Collier (Al), Colleen Renee (Aggie), Sarah Sutliff (Aggie), and Lisa Shelle Davis (Mrs. Viola Cramden). Thank you!

  As always, I depended on the astute feedback from my writers’ group, The Oracles. The Oracles are some of the best writers in the country, so their comments were extremely valuable to me. Thank you: Liz Amberly, Edgar Chisholm, Bill Cosgriff, Stuart D’Vers, Elana Gartner, Nicole Greevy, Marc Goldsmith, Nancy Hamada, Olga Humphrey, Penny Jackson, Robin Rice, Donna Specter, and Mike Vogel. I don’t think they’re aware of just how much our discussions helped me to make vital changes within the chapters.

  I also want to thank Dean Adele Weiner of Metropolitan College of New York who granted me a scholarship leave, which allowed me to complete this novel.

  About the Author

  I WAS BORN and raised in Huntington Station, New York. This town shouldn’t be confused with Al’s home town of Huntington. They are two different places, and it’s too long a story to explain the significance of that difference. Now, I live in New York City, and I have for quite some time. I’ve been a professor at Metropolitan College of New York for over fifteen years, but I don’t teach writing like many people guess. I teach psychology because my advanced training was in psychology, and I am a licensed psychologist.

  I was a writer long before I
was a psychologist. I wrote my very first novel in eighth grade, with encouragement from my teacher, Mr. James Evers, who would meet me before school every week to discuss the latest pages I had penned. He wrote in my Junior High Yearbook, “My children will read your words.” Unfortunately, others were not quite so encouraging, and I wandered away from my writing.

  I spent a lot of years going from job to job because the work-a-day world could not satisfy a restlessness in my soul. Along the way, I found playwriting and was a playwright for about twenty years. I found a place to hang my hat at Metropolitan College of New York where today I am a full professor. The desire to tell the story of LGBT history with fictional characters who live through that history brought me back to my original form, the novel, but I learned a lot about dialogue from playwriting.

  I’d love to hear from you. My online home is: http://www.vandawriter.com

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