Memoirs of an Ex-Prom Queen

by Alix Shulman

  “You won’t tell on me now, will you?” he’d ask, twinkling through his accent.

  “I won’t tell on you if you don’t tell on me,” I would twinkle back.

  Angie and I had stealing food down to an art. Since the staff ate only leftovers at The Zoo amid all that culinary opulence, we figured whatever we could steal was coming to us. To keep us supplied I had my angel, Mr. Winograd. Angie instead had daring. At 8:25, just before the kitchen officially accepted its last order, Angie would call in a steak (rare), or pick up a few extra desserts to hide at her station. While the customers were finishing up we’d slip the evening’s stash under the largest empty table in our stations. There it would wait until, after helping each other clear away and set up our stations for the morning meal, we would join the food under the table. Whatever we managed to take we shared fifty-fifty, except for leftover wine, which only Angie liked. (She never tired of admiring Mr. Winograd’s taste.) While the other girls were still cleaning up, Angie and I would wolf down shrimps, steak, and baba au rhum, safely concealed from Fritz’s roving eye by the tablecloth. We spoke to each other only with our eyes and eyebrows, suppressing all our giggles as, above us, Fritz shamed the slower girls by praising us. When we were certain that everyone had gone home for the night, we’d hide our dirty dishes at our stations and sneak out through the French doors.

  The story around the hotel had it that Mr. Winograd’s wife and children had been slaughtered before his eyes by the Nazis, after which he had fled to America with his diamonds, Old Masters, and cash. Now he wallowed in misery among his riches in some Westchester mansion, except in winter when he went to Florida and in summer when he came to the mountains. Hounded by fortune hunters and medics, he sought respite at my station.

  That the story was seriously flawed seemed to me obvious; nevertheless I accepted it at mealtime. For me, sorrow enhanced Mr. Winograd, and I fancied I reminded him of some dead beloved daughter. Out of mischief and love I played the accomplice, sneaking him out of the dining room after breakfast so that he might make it out to the golf links undetected, or swearing to his nurse that two eggs Benedict had really been one four-minute-boiled. Though his was invariably my best tip, I loved him for himself.

  “Sorry the roast beef took so long tonight, Mr. Winograd. I had a little trouble with one of the chefs,” I apologized.

  “It’s okay,” he said frowning. He tucked his napkin back under his collar and added, “but please I hope you don’t let this happen again.”

  It was the first time he had shown displeasure, and I took it badly. I had come to the mountains to test my powers, thinking I could name the game and pick my partner, and maybe even set the stakes. But if Mr. Winograd or Fritz or the kitchen staff didn’t want me here, I wouldn’t even get to play. It was all very fine for Emerson to insist that “nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles”; but I could clearly see that if I wanted to keep my job I would really have to go out with Jan Pulaski.

  Two nights later right on schedule I was sitting nervously beside Jan in his two-tone blue hard-top convertible careering down a mountain toward Mirror Lake. How would I ever get out of this?

  The instant Jan had appeared behind The Zoo with his muscular neck confined in finery, a silk handkerchief protruding from his jacket pocket, and his untamable curls slicked down, I saw the whole scenario. Though the wolf had donned sheep’s clothing, he didn’t fool me for an instant. He simply intended to have me as a last course instead of as a first.

  “Cigarette?” said Jan. He pushed in the car lighter and snapped open a cigarette case.

  “Thank you,” I accepted. “Where are we going?”

  “Oh, a little spot I know.”

  I could tell by the pride in his voice that the “little spot” was either going to be very expensive or very romantic or perhaps a place where Jan knew the head waiter. I saw the whole evening stretching before me like one of Fritz’s five-course dinners, with me the pièce de résistance. First the little spot where I would be expected to drink and be impressed; then somewhere for a bite to eat; then a feeler to see if I was ready yet, and if not (and I wouldn’t be!), then a nightcap at another little spot; and finally, no matter what I’d say, off to park the car at some natural wonder to admire the view and devour me. There wasn’t a thing I could do to prevent it, for, having got himself up in this necktie and pomade, Jan was far too uncomfortable and ridiculous to risk not having his way. He would be spending too much and trying too hard to be willing to go away hungry.

  “Where you from, Alice? How did you wind up at the Belleview Palace?” He was trying to match his conversation to his getup, pretending our exchange in the kitchen had never taken place.

  “I’m from Cleveland. Richard Ross told me about the job. He was the tennis instructor here last year.”

  “Richard Ross. Yeah, college boy,” said Jan nodding contemplatively. He ran a finger around the inside of his awkward collar and stepped on the gas.

  I read his meaning. Already I was being wronged. Just because I would be going to college the following year while Jan would never, he was going to think me a snob for turning him down. As one had thought me cold, and another had thought me stuck-up, and another had thought me chicken. It was so unfair. It was as impossible to refuse as it was to submit without being maligned; damned if you do and damned if you don’t. “If there’s one kind of girl I really can’t stand,” Cookie had thrown at me after making such sweet love to my lips, “it’s a C.T. Cock Teaser!” and devastated, I had lain back and opened my legs for him. Maybe, I thought, I ought to open them for Jan too, to prove my devotion to democracy. But when I looked over and saw the smug grin on his beefy face, all my hate came rushing back. What did I care what he thought of me? Snob or no, I’d refuse. I cannot break myself any longer for you, or you.

  “How old are you Alice?”

  “Eighteen.”

  He looked at me carefully. “Eighteen. You’re a sweet kid.” It was the same phrase Cookie had used to disarm me.

  The sweet kid leaned back captive and regarded the mountain.

  SCENE 1: The Blue Room of the Grand Adirondack.

  “Well! Jan Pulaski! Whatta ya say?”

  “How’s it goin’, Mike? You’re looking great. Got something up front near the floor for us?”

  “It’s pretty tight tonight, but for you Jan I’ve always got something. There’ll just be a little wait. Why dontcha order at the bar while I set you up? The show doesn’t start for another twenty minutes. (He looks at me.) You’re looking great, Jan, really great.”

  Jan steers me by the elbow to the darkened bar where the musicians are tanking up for the next show. He orders our drinks and then squeezes my elbow and smiles down at me. With someone else I’d drink rye and ginger, but with Jan I ask for a Mary Jane. It’s a hard choice; hating the taste of rye I can nurse one a long time, while Mary Janes tend to slip down easily; but in absolute terms, Mary Janes are less potent. Hoping I will never again have to screw out of charity or prudence, I choose to exercise self-control with Mary Janes. With Cookie, rye had been my undoing.

  The floor show starts. Ethnic comedians make ethnic jokes. A sad lady, bleached and buxom, sings badly songs of love and joy. Jan sits back in his chair expansively, proud to have got us our table. He is attentive to the show except when he fingers the card that states the cover charge or when he lights a cigar. Bored but polite, I trace patterns on the table in melted ice with a swizzle stick. When the show is over Jan reaches across the table and squeezes my hand. I smile a minimal smile.

  “Let’s dance.”

  We dance.

  “I’m afraid we don’t dance this way in Cleveland,” I say, overcome by embarrassment. “Let’s sit down, okay?”

  We go. Jan tips the waiter ostentatiously, lights a cigar for the road, and on the way out slaps the captain on the back. “Thanks, buddy,” he says in a low growl, and then to me, “Jesus I’m hungry! How about something to eat?”

 
SCENE 2: The Snack Shop of the View Haven Swiss Chalet.

  I gobble a jumbo shrimp cocktail. When I finish the shrimps I start on the lettuce, dipping it into the cocktail sauce. Jan, sitting across from me in the booth, eats an open-face steak sandwich and french fries, the whole drenched in catsup. He tears huge bites of steak and bread with his knife and fork, then pitches them into his mouth left-handed, using his palate as a backboard. I watch in amazement.

  “Want another shrimp cocktail?” Whenever he addresses me his eyes narrow and his thick face grins a little; I wonder if it is a tic.

  “No thanks” I sip at my coffee. “How’s the steak?”

  “Okay. A little tough. This hotel ain’t what it used to be.” He makes a set shot and masticates. “How’d you like the Adirondack floor show?” he says with a mouthful.

  “Nice.”

  Now comes THE FEELER:

  “I think it’s too bad to spend a night watching a show inside when there’s such a great show going on outside. I mean like Ausable Chasm or Mirror Lake or even just the Milky Way. Natural beauty like that is better than any entertainers up from New York City, don’t you think? Ever seen the face on Whiteface Mountain?”

  “Mmmmm hmmmmm.” I hum it so cynically that Jan, taken aback, decides to retain SCENE 3 and deftly sets the stage, saying:

  “I know a place on the road to Whiteface Mountain where you can look out and practically see up the old man’s nostrils. C’mon, I’ll show you. You’ve been a good girl so I’ll take you up there for a nightcap. Let’s get out of this joint.” He pays the check, takes a toothpick, and starts picking and sucking at his teeth.

  “I’ve had so much to eat and drink already, Jan, I’d rather just go home now if you don’t mind. I’ve got a headache too.”

  “C’mon. A drink’ll do you good. It’ll clear your head. Brandy and soda for a headache. You listen to your old Uncle Jan.” As his eyes narrow ever so slightly I see behind them the faint flicker of carving knives.

  SCENE 3: The White Face Tavern.

  “There now. Isn’t that better?”

  “I’m afraid it’s worse. I really want to go home now Jan. Please.”

  SCENE 4: The top of Whiteface Mountain (4,870 feet), renowned for its view.

  Since it is night time, it’s almost impossible to admire the view; instead we start admiring stars. I wish quickly on the first one, but I know it won’t work. The headache hasn’t worked. Sulking hasn’t worked. Not even a miracle is going to get me home free from a twenty-dollar date, even (especially) one I never wanted. If a man can’t collect on his investments he must admit to being a fool. The only question is: How cheaply can I buy out? What will I have to pay him to let me go?

  I identify the Big Dipper, the Little Dipper, the Five Sisters, Cassiopeia, and the North Star, hoping my erudition about the night sky will preclude getting romantic.

  “You mean that one, there?” says Jan, pointing at the North Star from around my far shoulder. Once over, he keeps his arm around me. I move close to my door, but the arm moves after me and then the man. I try to remember some other constellations, but they have all deserted me.

  I ask for a cigarette. After it is presented and lit, back comes the arm. I try the radio. That too he manages to use against me. “You are too beauuuu-tiful for one man alone,” he croons and exerting pressure on my captive right shoulder attempts to probe me with an opening kiss.

  Disgusting! “You are too beautiful,” he moons, coming up for breath (true or not, it doesn’t matter), then presses his thick lips down on me for another. Our teeth touch.

  Enough. I start out straightforwardly, pushing against his chest with my hands to let him know how I feel and to give him the opportunity to withdraw nicely. It’s like pushing a mountain: he doesn’t budge. I pull my head back at the neck. (To pull back lower down, from the shoulders or back, would permit him almost effortlessly to flatten and mount me.) He presses in after.

  He lets the fingers of his right hand slowly down onto my breast, like a date at the movies, at the same time that he begins blowing into my ear. After taking the precaution of crossing my legs I reach up toward my breast and grab his fingers. But he must think I simply want to hold hands, for instead of pitching the battle over the breast, he slips his other hand up my skirt, carried away, I guess, by his vision of his irresistible charms. When he finds the passage blocked, he tries to open it by stroking my thigh, inching higher and higher. My earlobe receives a vicious nip (“baby, baby!”). Abandoning my breast to his right-hand flank, I bring in my remaining limbs to assist my legs.

  He’s not a rhinoceros but a squid! Somehow he has got both my hands, which had been pulling at his probing arm, off the field, and with one of his extra limbs has pushed me down prone on the car seat. Oh-oh. With a single hard thrust of his knee he can now break my defenses, wedge my thighs open, and make for the opening.

  “Stop!” I cry.

  “Oh baby, baby!” he replies, sucking on my ear and trying to slip his fingers inside my underpants. He thinks that a finger inside me will make me desire him; they all read the same bad books.

  Assessing my position I see that this man doesn’t care in the least that I reject him. He won’t hear of it. I must submit or outwit him; he cares only for cunt. How discouraging to have come these three hundred miles only to wind up struggling in yet another parked car. In flat Ohio they drive you fifteen miles out into the country; in the Adirondacks they take you up four thousand feet. In either case, once they turn off their motors and the lights it is very hard for you to get back home. “Scorn appearances,” says old Emerson, and here I am, hundreds of miles from my reputation just dying to scorn appearances, yet as terrified of this meat chef as of anyone in Baybury Heights. What is the difference? Having come this great distance to be myself and make love freely, must I still try all the old tricks to avoid being raped? What is going on? If Candide had been born a girl, would he too in this best of worlds have wound up being ravished on a mountaintop?

  Now I know time’s up. No matter how tightly I squeeze my legs, if I don’t get Jan out of there right now I haven’t a chance. “Power ceases in the instant of repose,” says Emerson. I can’t waste another instant using the wrong tactics. Anger is out. If I scream or slap this man he’ll slap me back and unzip. Pleas and flattery are useless too. He has long since faced his needs and dismissed mine with a simple there’s only one way to handle a woman—take her! No, I have only one resource with which to move him from his investment; only one trick in my arsenal stands a chance of working. If he isn’t to be paid off in sex for his trouble and expense he will have to be paid off in tears. It works on fathers, doctors, and teachers; maybe it will work on Jan Pulaski, making him, too, feel powerful and benevolent. If it doesn’t, I might as well save my dress and cooperate: I am vanquished anyway.

  I make myself cry, sobbing and sniffling.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing (sob). May I have your handkerchief?”

  Awkwardly he gets his silk hanky out of his pocket with his free hand and gives it to me. “Here.” More awkwardly still, from under him, I dab at my eyes.

  “Thanks.”

  “What’s the matter?”

  I bawl away, no longer faking. “It’s just that—ohhhhh, I can’t tell you. Ohhhhh.” My face will be blotching up from all the tears.

  “Hey, now. What is it kid?” He sits up. “Does something hurt you?”

  “I don’t know. I’m so embarrassed. You see, I’m not what you think I am. I’m a … a virgin.” He removes his hand from under my skirt and I go to town. “I’ve never been touched. Alice isn’t my real name. And I’m not eighteen either. I’m not even seventeen yet. I lied to you, about everything. Oh, take me home. Ohhhhh.”

  “Okay, okay.”

  It is working. I press on. “Take me home Jan. Please. You’ve just gotta take me home right now. Ohhhhhhh.”

  “Okay, kid, okay, I’ll take you home. We’re going right back to
the Belleview Palace. Just try to stop crying a little, will ya?” He turns on the motor. “Just leave everything to your old Uncle Jan.”

  “My father’s a judge,” I throw in to scare him. “He’ll be so mad!”

  All the way down the mountain I cried real tears. The virginity I defended was imaginary, but the innocence I mourned was not. I knew I might as well go back home.

  I finished out the month of July at the hotel so Fritz could find a replacement for me and I could announce my departure and collect my tips. Then, once again packing up my Emerson, I left the mountains for good.

  Back in Cleveland everyone treated me as though I were daring, accomplished, and beautiful: Queen of the Bunny Hop returning home in triumphal splendor. I alone knew I had really come back in defeat.

  I spent August in retreat, listening to Beethoven and studying the college catalogues, adjusting myself to my reduced circumstances while pretending to everyone that I had had an enviable and expanding experience. I so beguiled Alan Steiger with stories of my mountain adventures, and I so beguiled Angie through the mails with stories of my homecoming, that I actually began to believe in them. When I finished peeling completely and my skin began to glow again, I felt as though it had never stopped. My parents were as sweet and soft as applesauce. And the ugly blemish I had worried over in June had by September become a tiny brown mole, a permanent “beauty mark,” which eventually I came to accept, like something I had been born with.

  Every year until he died Mr. Winograd sent me an engraved New Year’s card at Christmas time accompanied by a short note which I always answered at length. He was my one remaining channel to the ocean. He made me very happy until, after I moved to New York four years later, he invited me to visit him in Westchester and I accepted.

  His butler picked me up at the station and delivered me to the Winograd mansion. I was shocked to see how wizened the old man had become. He had no voice left at all, and he stopped to rest every few steps. We dined alone under a magnificent crystal chandelier, laughing over old times. A mad Van Gogh watched us from the wall as we ate our elegant meal. For dessert we had a tall Baum Kuchen drenched in brandy, and throughout dinner we whispered little jokes about the service of the butler and the maid. After coffee, Mr. Winograd took me on a short tour of his priceless collection. Whenever he stopped to rest, I, towering over him, stopped too. When we returned to the living room, in a little burst of energy, sparkling and twinkling, Mr. Winograd presented me with a small eighteenth-century sepia drawing of a nude in a garden. He sat down—the better to watch my reaction, I thought. As I gaped in amazement, stuttering my thanks, he pulled me onto his lap.