Heaven Is to Your Left

by Vanda Writer

  “Fine. Boots wet. Imagine. Snow like this now. It’s almost April!” I grumbled as I walked through the bright blue inner foyer that led to the orchestra seating area. I pulled off my boots, threw my overcoat over one of the back-row seats, and headed down the center aisle toward Bobby McClaren, Tommie’s wife. He’d told us he was going to marry her that weekend of Marty’s and my graduation, and he did. His hit opening night at Café Society, Uptown, came back to me.

  I looked up, taking in the beauty of the architecture that surrounded me. The walls were covered with amber brocade and the seats were similarly tapestried. Above me was an impossibly high ceiling with an ornate chandelier hanging from it. The two balconies lifted up behind me and seemed to melt into the ceiling. On two sides, I was surrounded by box seats.

  I hurried down to Bobby sitting in the center aisle, knitting. She was round and short with stubby little legs that poked out of her flared shirtwaist dress. She was a pretty girl, not yet thirty, with a soft feminine face framed by bangs and short bouncy hair. In between stitches, she looked up at Tommie, who was running lines with Abby Warner, the ingenue. I didn’t see Juliana.

  “Hey, Bobby,” I whispered as I slid into the seat next to her. “How’s it been going?”

  “Tommie’s terrified,” she whispered back. “How can they expect him to prepare in only a week?”

  “Don’t worry. Tommie’s a trooper,” I said.

  “I’m not worried about him. I’m worried about me. I was up all night running lines with him. When I finally got to sleep, he began singing scales.”

  No matter how much Bobby complained about Tommie, she was the totally devoted wife. Right after Tommie and she got married, she gave up her own film ambitions to devote herself completely to Tommie’s career.

  When Tommie and Bobby stood next to each other, they looked like those comic strip characters, Mutt and Jeff. Tommie was tall and slender, his gestures delicate, while Bobby was short and stocky. It was kind of funny seeing them next to each other.

  I met Bobby at their wedding in LA. Max, Marty, Scott, and I went. Bobby and I hit it off right away, and I had gone out a few more times to visit them. Tommie and Bobby were a pretty typical lavender couple.

  “Take ten,” the stage manager, Ron, called, and Tommie floated off the stage, his arms flapping like a bird as he tiptoed gracefully toward the two of us sitting in the center aisle. “Al! Al,” he cried. I stood, and we embraced.

  “Oh, honey, I have missed you,” he said. “Kissy, kissy.” He took me into his arms and we kissed each other’s cheeks.

  “Enough of that,” Bobby said, putting down her knitting to stand with us. “He’s my honey bunch.”

  Tommie released me and brought Bobby close to him. “Hey, sweet pea.” He kissed her on the end of her nose.

  “You were damn good, buddy,” Bobby said and punched him in the arm.

  “Ow!” Tommy grabbed his arm.

  “Oh, stop. It was just a love pat, petunia. To keep you in shape. You’ve got to watch those high notes. Your voice isn’t built to go that high. They should rewrite that first act song for your voice.”

  “I can handle it, Mommy.”

  “We’ll go over it tonight.”

  They gave each other quick kisses on the lips. “I simply must have a smoke”—he skipped back toward the stage and dramatically held a hand to his forehead—“or I shall perish.”

  “They’re not good for your voice!” Bobby yelled after him with the tone of an umpire calling, “Strike three. You’re out.”

  Tommie and Bobby had bought a split-level on the outskirts of LA before coming to New York so they’d have a real home to go back to after all the New York hotel living was done.

  Ron, the stage manager, called everyone back to work. That’s when I finally saw Juliana. She stepped onto the stage from the wings, and my breath got stuck somewhere between my lungs and my throat. She moved toward the center of the stage, and my heart fluttered to the sound of her heels lightly clicking against the wood. She had her hair done up in a bouffant. And, oh, how lovely she looked in her Evan Picone pencil skirt and double-breasted blouse, the pointy collar sitting up against her neck, highlighting the short hair in back and the small silver earrings sitting delicately on her earlobes. I wanted to run up on stage and pull her into my arms and . . . She wasn’t even looking at me. I wondered if she knew I was there, but . . . No, we couldn’t risk even a careless glance among our own. The whole world had suddenly become more dangerous.

  She stood speaking to Tommie. He was playing the next-door neighbor. The rehearsal pianist ran her fingers over the keys as Stan Devenbach entered from the side door. So, he was to be the musical director. This was not going to go over well with Juliana. It wasn’t going over well with me, either. He must have been a last-minute hire, like this morning, because I’d heard nothing about it. Stan was the musical director who had walked out on us on Juliana’s first opening night at the Copa. Johnny, her pianist, got blind drunk an hour before she was to go on. We were counting on Stan to find a replacement, but instead he walked out, took advantage of the escape clause he made us put in his contract, and left us with nothing. We fixed it, of course, or I did, but he was not someone either of us were too happy to see.

  Juliana stiffened as Stan approached the stage in his usual three-piece suit, checking his pocket watch as he went.

  “No, Harry,” Juliana said firmly to the director. “No! Get this man away from me. I cannot work with him.”

  “Look, Julie,” Harry said, rising from his front row aisle seat. He rolled up the sleeves on his striped shirt and poked his thumbs through his suspenders. “All we have is a week. Stan’s a veteran. He’s the only one I know who can pull this together that fast.”

  “I cannot—will not work with that man.” She threw her script on the floor and walked off.

  Harry turned toward the back of the room. “Dan?”

  Dan Schuyler had just come in. He hadn’t even finished unbuttoning his coat. “I’ll take care of it, Harry.” He pulled off his overcoat and scarf and threw them across a couple of theater seats in the back. Hurrying down the center aisle, he adjusted his tie and went out through a side door. Why didn’t Harry go to Juliana? Harry was one of us. Was it because Dan was the producer, or did he know Schuyler had the power to control her? Could the others know? The radiator crackled, pouring in too much heat; still, I shivered, thinking of Juliana facing Dan alone.

  Through the silence of waiting, the radiator banged and Bobby’s knitting needles clicked; no one even tried to make conversation. We just sat there with our own thoughts, waiting.

  Juliana returned to the stage. She bent over and picked up her script. “Shall we begin?”

  “Yes. Yes, of course,” Harry said, hurrying to stand near the apron of the stage, obviously wanting to get beyond this horribly awkward moment. “Stan?” he said, turning to Devenbach, who sat in a front row center seat.

  Stan stood, pulled on the edge of his suit jacket, and said, “Let’s begin with, ‘Anytime You Want.’”

  The rehearsal pianist played the introduction and Juliana began to sing. The sounds she made were like liquid magic. Despite all the strain, her voice kept growing stronger and purer.

  Dan, leaning against the side doorsill, straightened, clapping. “Delightful, dear.” He approached the stage. “I wish I could stay for the whole rehearsal, but alas, I have several meetings to attend. Hopefully they will do the show good.” He hurried down the center aisle, scooped up his coat and scarf, and went out the back.

  As soon as he was gone, the tension sizzling in the room lifted like a collective sigh of relief. I hadn’t noticed it filling up the place till it was gone. It was the unconscious tension we often felt when a “normal” we weren’t sure of walked among us. Unconscious until said normal was gone.

  Stan called for a rehearsal of the duet with Marvin. Marvin Van Ville was an attractive man in his late forties with a sweep of black hair and a touch of gray
at the temples to make him look distinguished. I think he planned it that way. Marvelous magic came in bottles.

  Marvin and Juliana sang together, their voices melding and harmonizing. The chorus boys and girls stood behind them, singing different lyrics. Then Juliana and Marvin’s voices were no longer harmonizing. They were having an argument in song. The chorus boys sang with Marvin, while the girls sang with Juliana. Stan stopped them a few times, gave some direction that I couldn’t hear, and then they began again.

  Bobby elbowed me. “She’s good, hey?”

  Ron, the stage manager, called the break for lunch, which was my cue to get back to the office and get something done. I was working on getting a hot singer or a hot group to commit to doing a few weeks at the club. We needed somebody big to get through our slump but negotiating a fee that didn’t sink us was becoming a problem. I’d been thinking of the Four Aces. I just loved their “Love is a Many Splendored Thing.” I wished Jule and I could dance together to that. The Four Aces would be expensive for the Haven right now. I wondered about the Four Lads. Their songs were climbing the charts or . . . maybe the Four Preps. What was this thing with four? But yes! The Preps might work. They were new, practically unknown. Practically unknown won’t do anything for our audience problem. No good. I had to get back to the office and figure something out. As I got up from my seat, a newsboy whizzed in, stomping melting snow all over the rug. “Tip Off!” he called out, waving a thin magazine. “Brand new! Different! Not a gossip rag! Only the facts. Researched facts. Get ’em here while they’re hot. Filled with shocking behind the scenes stories of Katharine Hepburn, Winston Churchill, Gloria Vanderbilt, Margaret O’Brien.”

  A few of us lined up to give the kid our quarter and get a copy of this new entertainment magazine that was supposed to deliver only the “facts.” Most of the actors and crew were more practical and had run off to get food. The fearless director, Harry, was the first out the door. I was eager to read “Why Katharine Hepburn Gave the Roman Wolves the Razz.” Now that sounded like a piece of solid investigative journalism. I slid my copy into my briefcase to be read over lunch in my office. I was pulling on my boots when Ron called out to the few of us that were left. “Hey, kids! Did you see what’s in here?” He signaled us to meet him around the piano and he hurried down the proscenium steps. Juliana was already reading the magazine in her chair on stage and didn’t get up to join the rest.

  I hopped a few steps in one boot to get to my briefcase. I slipped the newsprint magazine out and skimmed the titles of the articles until I came to “Why They Call Broadway the ‘Gay White Way.’” My heart fell into my stomach. I spun around just in time to see Juliana giving me a glance before quickly looking down at her paper again. The group by the piano were giggling. I thumbed my way through the article, breathless, terrified I’d find Juliana and my name in there.

  “They don’t mention names in there, do they?” I heard Marvin whisper.

  I hurried to join Ron, Tommie, Bobby, Marvin, and Apple.

  “Ron said, “I wonder which show the guy means in this paragraph? ‘Three shows which were on Broadway within the past year were completely dominated by deviates.’”

  “Only three?” Apple, the assistant stage manager, a safe straight, laughed. “So, tell me which one wasn’t dominated by you guys?”

  “No!” Tommie squawked, jumping up and down. “Deviates in the theater? I’m shocked.”

  Subdued laughter.

  I kept looking toward the back to be sure Dan Schuyler hadn’t shown up while skimming ahead through the article, looking for Juliana’s and my name.

  “This guy claims,” Ron whispered, “there’s a producer’s wife who goes around asking pretty chorus girls to her house for lunch. If the girl doesn’t accept, the next time her producer-husband is casting a show, that little beauty is plain out of dumb luck. Who do you think that is?” Hey, Juliana! You know this woman?” Ron asked.”

  “How would I know people like that? You know perfectly well I live the dull life of an ordinary housewife.”

  “Sure, Julie honey, sure,” Ron said, and the others giggled into their hands.

  “Oh, no!” Tommie said, jumping up and down and flapping his hands. “They’re calling us the ‘lace pantie set.’ Isn’t that adorable?”

  “Stop!” Marvin said, stomping his foot against the floor. “I don’t want to listen to any more of this childish nonsense. I’ll come back when you’re ready to behave as professionals.” He charged off the set fists swinging as if he were trying to look like Mr. Universe heading for a Muscle magazine photo shoot.

  Everyone broke into raucous laughter, but as the laughter slowly subsided, a sadness snuck into the room. We weren’t expecting it. Well, at least we had each other, I thought, because we knew most “normals,” “straights,” “jams”—whatever we called them—would never knowingly invite any of us into their homes.

  “It’s beginning to feel like a funeral in here,” Ron said. “Everybody. Out. Have lunch and don’t come back late or sad. Remember we’re sposed to be gay. Act like it.”

  I picked up a brisket on rye at the Carnegie Deli on my way back to the office. When I entered the Haven, I found Bertha there as always, but she wasn’t alone. She stood near my office door, giggling with one of her girlfriends. “Do you believe this book?” she said to her.

  “What are you doing in front of my door?” I asked so firmly I scared myself.

  The book flew out of Bertha’s chubby hands. The other girl stood frozen. “We were just, just . . .” Bertha stammered.

  I bent over to retrieve the book. In large yellow letters across the front ran the title, Queer Affair. Two women with low-cut blouses, one running her hand through the other’s hair, were pictured under the title. Above the title, it read, “Theirs was a passion no man could share. The novel that dares to tell the truth about perverse love.”

  I swallowed down my terror and looked Bertha straight in the eyes. “I believe you dropped your book, Bertha.” I held it out to her.

  “It’s not mine,” she squealed, pushing it back at me. “It’s disgusting.”

  “Is it? I thought you were reading it because you’re queer.” I could hardly get the word passed my lips.

  “No!” Bertha backed away from me, horrified.

  I pushed the book at the other girl. “Yours?”

  “No.” The girl shook her head, on the verge of tears.

  I turned back to Bertha. “Should I report the kind of filth you bring into the club to Max?”

  “Please, no,” Bertha pleaded. “I need this job.”

  “It’s illegal, you know, for homosexuals to work in establishments that sell liquor. Maybe you should be fired.”

  “No. Please. I’m not one of those. I’m not. I’m not. I can’t lose this job. My mother would kill me. We need the money.”

  “Then take this garbage out into the street and never let me see you bring something like it back into the Haven ever again.” I pushed the book at Bertha’s hands.

  “Don’t make me take it,” she whimpered. “What if someone sees me?”

  “You brought it in. You’ll take out. With your own two hands. You walk out that door”—I pointed—“past Giorgio and throw it into the trash receptacle in the street. Now!”

  “Here’s the bag you brought it in,” the other girl offered.

  I grabbed the bag from her hand. “No! Take it like that.”

  Bertha took the book from me and held it in front of her as if it were a bomb about to

  explode. “Be sure no one catches you with it,” I said. “They’re liable to think you’re a dyke.”

  I’d never seen Bertha run so fast. The other girl stood there frozen. “Go!” I shouted at her “Before I call your mother and tell her”—I whispered—"you’re queer.” I didn’t know if she was young enough to have a mother who’d care, but she ran out the door anyway.

  Shaking, I opened my office door, locked it, and pulled down the shade. I pushed my na
ils into my wood desk. I remembered that time before Paris. I was auditioning a girl for the new show. Ethel, yes, Ethel was her name. I was surprised I remembered it. She sang and danced for me. And just as I was about to end the audition, she took off all her clothes and tried to seduce me. I managed to get her back into her clothes and out of the club, but as I watched her go, I turned to see Bertha standing there. Had she watched the whole thing? I didn’t do anything about it. But how might Bertha have interpreted that? That night she gave me a strange smile and said, “I know you’re not one of those types of women.” And the way she said those words made my skin itch. Now, I knew. Bertha must be the one. My betrayer. She must be in cahoots with Schuyler.

  Tears slid down my face and a panic gripped me. I felt completely vulnerable, naked, and about to collapse. I wanted to crawl under my desk. Disappear. And more tears came, and it took every bit of strength to not cry out to some God I used to believe in as a child. A God of love who cared about me. Where was that God now? The one who gave a damn about deviates? Was there such a God?

  I sat frozen at my desk for what may have been hours. I do remember watching the cold sun gradually disappear from the window as everything turned to black. My only thought—it was Bertha. Bertha was the one. Our betrayer. Bertha. All that fawning over me and snooping around. She must’ve left that book on my desk before I left for Paris. From what she said, it sounded like she was providing financial support for her mother. Schuyler probably paid her to spy on me. I shivered at the thought. Trust no one. That must be my slogan from now on.

  There was a desperate knocking on the door, jarring me from my numbness. Someone was on the other side of that shade. I waited, holding my breath, hoping they’d go away. The knocking persisted. I quickly wiped my eyes with my soggy handkerchief and threw it in my purse. A strange fear grabbed me, like there was some dark specter on the other side of that door, something that wanted to hurt me . . . or worse. My heart thumping, I slowly raised the brown shade and on the other side of the window—Virginia and Mercy, giggling and still knocking.