by Vanda Writer
I sat at my desk. “I haven’t told anyone, but I can’t stand living with it inside me anymore and it’s just gotten worse.” I jumped up. “I made it worse and I don’t know what to do. No, I can’t drag you into this. Forget it. Everything’s fine. What am I going to do?” A few nervous tears appeared in my eyes. Marty took his handkerchief from his pocket and wiped them away. “First, you’re going to tell me what you’re talking about. Then, we’ll figure out what to do.”
I sat in my chair with one of his hands in mine. “I’m so glad you’re here. I missed you.” I took a deep breath. “Juliana and I are in trouble.”
“Well, you couldn’t have gotten her pregnant.”
“Marty, please! This is serious.”
“Sorry, kiddo. What happened?”
“You can’t tell anybody about this. Nobody. Swear!
“So, tell me.”
“Swear first.”
“You really mean that?”
“I do.”
“Okay. I swear.”
“You swear never to reveal what I’m going to tell you.”
“Yes.”
“Cross your heart.”
“I cross my heart.” He ran a finger over his heart. “But I’ve got to tell you I feel a little like we’re ten, getting ready to cut each other’s fingers and be blood brothers.”
“Juliana’s career and reputation are more at stake than mine, but I worked pretty damn hard to put her where she is today, and I don’t want Max to have to fire me, so I have a lot on the line too.”
“Why would Max ever fire you? You practically built the whole Haven yourself.”
“I wouldn’t want the world to know about Juliana and me.”
“Of course not.” He leaned toward me. “Why would they?”
“Uh . . .” Was I really going to say this out loud? I went to the door and checked that no one was on the other side listening. The club looked empty out there. Chills ran up my arms and legs as I faced Marty. I took in a deep breath and slowly let it seep out again. “The lead producer of Juliana’s show, Dan Schuyler—he threatened to, uh, publicly expose us.”
“Why would he do that? That would close down his own show.”
“No. He made the threat before Juliana signed the contract to do Heaven. That’s why she agreed to it. She had to. But now . . .”
“Why would he do that?”
“After that big flop two years ago, she refused to go on a Broadway stage ever again, but
Schuyler needed her because this big investor, a secret investor, was in love with her and he wouldn’t invest in Schuyler’s show unless—”
“No, no. What I meant was, Schuyler is one of us so why would he—?”
“Schuyler’s not gay.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. He hates us. Why would you think he’s gay?”
“I met him.”
“Yeah, at Sardis. At the opening night party, I know, but . . .”
“No. I didn’t talk to him at Sardis. He came in when I was being, well, carted out, if you remember.”
“I do. You were pretty drunk. I’d never seen you drink like that.”
“Yeah, well, anyway I met Schuyler long before Jule’s opening night. At a bar last year. Before you left for Paris.”
“A gay bar?”
“Is there any other kind?”
“For you there was supposed to be. You weren’t supposed to be in a gay bar last year at all. The gray list? The FBI? You were only supposed to go to straight bars. You know what kind of chance you were taking?”
“I know. I know. But those straight bars were so boring.”
“So, you’re sure you met Schuyler in a gay bar?”
“Yes. Is that a problem?”
“He told me he’d been watching me for a couple years, taking notes.”
“That’s creepy.”
“Sure is.” I had to pace again. “Now, every time I go anywhere, I feel like someone could be watching me. He told me he had a witness who knew that Juliana and I were ‘that way’ and this witness would talk to the press.”
“A lot of the press know about our kind, they have for years. Most don’t like it, but they never print anything. There’s a certain decorum they have to follow.”
“What about Tab Hunter two years ago? Or Marlene Dietrich a few months ago?”
“Yeah, well, that was scary for all of us. But nothing came of it.”
“Because they had people to cover for them. We don’t. Not the top-notch producer types with millions of dollars they have in Hollywood. Would you want you and your current fling spread across their front page?”
“Heavens, no!”
“And what about that article in that new newspaper, Tip Off? It said gays are in charge of the theater.”
“Well, that’s kind of true.”
“Oh, is it? And we’re a cult that threatens straights into doing perverted things, or else they can’t get a theater job?”
Marty laughed. “That’s the kind of propaganda they always use against us, but they didn’t print one single name. Because they know they can’t back it up.”
“I don’t know about that, Marty. We live in a world that believes you must be a communist if you want equal rights for all races. Schuyler implied he could get our names in a quality mag or paper using this witness. Someone who would give an interview to somebody like Lee Mortimer at The Daily Mirror.”
“A cheap Broadway gossip columnist.”
“Who people pay attention to. Look at what Mortimer and his buddies, Cholly Knickerbocker and Westbook Pegler, did to Barney Josephson at Café Society just because he had a brother who used to be a communist. Barney lost both his clubs. The only place to welcome Negroes and Jews as patrons. These people have power, and the public will not come to a Broadway show with a queer in it. They could even connect Juliana and me with having a communist affiliation.”
“I know.” Marty sighed.
“Plus, Juliana has this Communist brother in Paris . . .”
“She does?”
“Forget I told you that. I don’t want to talk about him now.”
“Do you think he’s Schuyler’s source?”
“Jeez, I never thought of that.” I whispered, “Do you really think he . . .? No. He can hardly speak English.”
“Does Schuyler speak French?”
“Yes. And he goes back and forth to Paris regularly.” I sat back down on my chair. “Oh, Marty, do you really think her brother . . .?”
“Could be.”
“Schuyler’s motivation is personal gain, but Christophe, that’s Juliana’s brother, has a loftier motivation. He wants to help the working poor of France. That kind of motivation can be stronger, harder to fight. I’ve been going nuts trying to figure out who this person could be. I thought it had to be someone who could get into my office. That’s why I jumped right away to Lucille or . . . Schuyler did say it was someone I worked with so . . .”
“Maybe to throw you off the trail. Lucille adores you, and I think she has a crush on Juliana. I can’t see her as someone who would betray you.”
“She’s ambitious.”
“We all are. That doesn’t mean she’d sell you both down the river.”
“I know. Then there’s Bertha.”
“Well — that one is odd,” Marty said. “But, still . . .”
“Up until just a few minutes ago, I was convinced it was her. Kilgallen had that bit in her
“Voice of Broadway” column about our club running out of money and—”
“That was about the Haven?”
“Oh, damn, I thought you knew. But, how could you? That topic’s secret.”
“Is it serious?”
“Please don’t tell anyone. If this gets out, it’ll sink us for sure.”
“I already swore, remember? Have you ever considered that Bertha is working for Kilgallen?”
“I think she is. But who is trying to undo the club and Juliana and me? I used to th
ink it was Bertha, but I don’t know. I think it’s too big a job for Bertha, who doesn’t seem terribly bright. But now with Christophe as a possibility. I never—”
“Bertha could be brighter than you’re giving her credit for.”
“Maybe. Sometimes I feel like I might go out of my mind surrounded by all this doubt and betrayal. They left a book.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know who, but it couldn’t have been Christophe. He’d never be able to afford the price of a plane ticket to come all the way to New York to leave a book in my office. This whole thing has me at sixes and sevens. I can barely think. And today I almost hired a mob guy—”
“What?”
“A friend of Bart’s. But I didn’t hire him.”
“What kind of book?” Marty asked.
“A book. It’s about . . . Wait. I have it here.”
I opened the bottom drawer of my desk and took out Female Homosexuality. “Someone left this as a threat. They underlined some sentences on this page, and then the first night I came back from Paris, they left a torn page from it under the paperweight. I turned to the page that had been underlined and read: “Crime is intimately . . .”
“. . . associated with female sexual inversion,” Marty recited.
“You’ve read this?”
“I underlined it. Oh, gosh, Al, I’m sorry.”
“You’re his witness against me? You told him about Juliana and me?”
“I was drunk and upset. It was during that time I didn’t have any work and you couldn’t get me anything, and then you got me that job as the Easter Bunny and—”
“So, this is what you do to me? You’re in cahoots with Schuyler?”
“No! Gosh, no. I haven’t talked to him since that night. I never saw him again in any of the bars. That night he was probably out looking for—”
“A stooge to do his bidding and you fit the bill. Get out of here.”
“Listen, Al.” He moved to the very edge of his seat. “I would never be any kind of witness against you. I won’t be. I wasn’t right in my head when Schuyler got me in his clutches. I felt humiliated in that costume, and so when he asked me to . . . You’ve got to . . .”
“What? Trust you? After you snuck into my office to threaten me? You’ve turned Jule’s and my life into a living hell. Get out of here.”
“Al, be reasonable!”
“Me be reasonable? Get out before I get Eddie, our new bouncer—and he’s a giant—to throw you out.”
He stood up. “Sure, Al, I’ll go, but you just remember that I didn’t do this alone. You helped me a lot.” He pulled open the door and walked out. His slam vibrated through my body for hours.
Chapter Fourteen
“And listen to this, Scott.” We sat at a corner table in one of the smaller upstairs rooms at the Haven. It was filled with teenagers dancing to rock and roll and rockabilly, part of our new campaign to bring in more customers on weekday nights; my idea. I’d been drinking quite a lot. “This guy, this hoity-toity Frank S. Caprio, MD, says that this other doctor, Dr. Menninger, told him about the case of a lesbian who he interviewed in a state prison for women. She was there because she beat her husband to death with a hammer and left him locked in their apartment while she drove fifty miles to a bridge game. He was implying that that was how lesbians were. Am I anything like that? No!” I said before Scott could respond. “And you’d never catch Juliana taking a sledgehammer to Richard’s head no matter how annoying he got.”
“You should lower your voice. Someone might hear you. What on earth are you reading?” I showed him the cover of Female Homosexuality: A Psychodynamic Study of Lesbianism. “Then it goes on to say that most of us are a bunch of drunks.” I swallowed down the last of my Manhattan and signaled to Cal, our waiter, for another one. “Isn’t that ridiculous?”
Scott gave me a look. “Well, right now . . .”
“I am not a drunk!”
“Maybe you should put that book away. It doesn’t seem to be helping your mood any, and someone might see it.”
A girl singer had moved to the mike in front of the band. She sang, “Why Do Fools Fall in Love,” not as good as Frankie Lymon. The kids jumped out of their seats and started to swing, jitterbug, bop, whatever they were calling it this week. Arnie from the orchestra joined the singer with a horn solo that sold the song lots better than the singer. I had to replace her.
With a sudden rush of fear, I slammed the book shut and gripped it to my lap, my hands covering the title. I hadn’t told Scott about the mess I was in. I hadn’t told him I’d just lost my best buddy, Marty. I hadn’t told him I was completely alone in the world — like I could be chewed up and the pieces of me spit up into the gutter and no one would notice. I hadn’t told him I was afraid to leave the Haven that night. I have to stay here all night and make Scott stay with me. I won’t be safe out there. Out there in the world. I can’t go underground to the subway. That’d be like volunteering to step into my own coffin. What if I’m followed? What if Bart told some mobster and tonight on the subway— Cal put a refreshed drink in front of me. I drank it right down and extended the empty glass back toward him. He stared. “Al!” Scott admonished. Hesitantly, Cal took the glass.
“You’re drinking too much,” Scott said. “What’s going on?”
“Ya know something, Scott? I haven’t had a damn sidecar in almost a year. And they’re . . . they’re my faborite.” Scott was beginning to look a little blurry.
“Then have one. I don’t know much about liquor so I’m not sure how it mixes with a Manhattan, but it must be a lot better than having one drink after another of what you don’t want.”
“You don’t understand. I can’t. I can’t have one of them ever again.” Cal put another Manhattan in front of me. I squinted at Scott, trying to see him clearer. “Scott, you look terrible. Your eyes are bloodshot, your face is pale. You’ve lost weight too.”
“Some,” he said, his voice listless.
I suddenly felt guilty. I’d been drowning my anger by reading that book to him and drinking while he was sinking right before my eyes. How could I be so selfish? I knew how fragile Scott was. I shook my head, trying to get it cleared up. “Tell me, Scott. What is it?”
“It’s over, Al. I could feel it in Paris, but I know for sure now.” He crushed his cigarette out in the ashtray that sat between us. “He’s got someone new.”
“No. He told you that?
“No. But . . .”
“He’s never mentioned one other single person to me ever. He’s just busy with the two clubs. Business isn’t how it should be and he’s worried. The club world is changing, and he’s afraid we can’t keep up. He’s scared it’ll be like the thirties all over again, when he lost everything.”
“Did he tell you that?
“Not exactly, but I know Max. He doesn’t talk about emotional things very often.”
“But I know it’s over with him and me. I’ve already moved out. This afternoon.”
“What?”
“We’ve been staying in separate rooms since I got back from Paris.”
“How is it I didn’t know this? I live in the same damn apartment. That place is entirely too big.”
“We didn’t want to say anything to you yet. We’ve been trying to work it out. Sorta.
I’ve been moving my stuff out gradually for a couple of weeks now. While you’re at the office, which is most of the time.”
“That’s where the signed Waterford crystal fruit bowl and the hurricane lamp went. I noticed they weren’t in the dining room this morning.”
“They’ve been out from there for weeks. I would’ve left one of them for you, but they were my first pieces of really nice cut glass and they match so . . .”
“No, they’re yours. That’s not the point. I know the two of you can work—”
“He’s seeing someone else. I know it. He’s always played around on the side and I didn’t
mind. Too much. You know, because
I, well, you know, my problems in . . . well, you know. So, I understood. He always came back to me. We were affectionate. But now? He’s really seeing someone else.”
“Who?”
“He wouldn’t say. It hurts him too much that this is happening. Not as much as it hurts me, but . . . Gosh, Al, I love him, but I can’t get past the idea that it’s wrong. This is my fault. I left him with no other choice. I just — even when I try to forget about my religion, all my mother taught me, it keeps flooding me and I can’t be with him the way he needs. I know it’s me, but . . . When I think of living my life without him, I just feel . . . No, it’ll be okay. This is right. I’ll get over it. I always used to picture myself with a family. You know, a wife, a couple of kids. I was never prepared for Max and all this other. I don’t know how to be . . . what Max is.” He lit another cigarette.
“I see you’re still smoking. Your religion hasn’t stopped you from doing that?”
“I keep telling myself I’m going to stop, but . . . It’s probably good it’s over.”
“Did he actually say it’s over?”
“No.”
“Well then?”
“I know it’s coming. He’s just afraid to say it, and I’m afraid to hear it. He hardly ever talks to me the way he used to. About the future and the things we’ll do together, or how he likes the way my eyebrows go up when I laugh, or how the vest he bought me looks so good on me. He just talks to me about business, account balances and such.”
“You see? He’s worried about the business.”
“It’s for the best, Al. We’ve had some unpleasant words with each other.”
“All couples fight, the straights too.”
“I know. But this is different. It’s not like arguments we had before. There’s something ugly about the things we say to each other. I put three month’s rent on a cute little apartment in the village. That’s where I’m going tonight.”
“You mean—you’re not going to be in our home anymore. You’re just gonna be — gone.”
“I have to do it this way. I can’t say goodbye to him. I left a note.”
“A note? After all you two have been to each other?”
“It’s a note he’s expecting. I can’t have any more of those ugly words. And now, I’ll get back to trying to be a family man, like I was raised to be. I’ll find a nice woman and . . .”