* * *
—
THE FOX-WATSON THEATRE, where the Tah-Dah! fundraiser took place, was a wonderful art deco concoction of crystal chandeliers, a fantastic stairway, and luxurious, gold-leaf highlights. Still feeling an uneasy trembling in her legs, Lily stood in the lobby and leaned against the cigarette machine, taking it all in. Mrs. Baumgarten appeared in a silk caftan and turban, rings and bangles and long, dangling earrings. The silk was tangerine with a pattern of tumbling crimson tulips.
She kissed Lily on both cheeks and gently, inconspicuously, took Lily’s forearm in her hands. She held Lily’s arm between them, intimate. “Who?” she asked, indicating the bruise that was surfacing like lies long buried.
But Lily just smiled weakly into her teacher’s face. She didn’t want a scene, and it was too late for remedies. She just wanted out. Out of Salina in four weeks and six days. She covered her arm with the opposite hand, held it against her waist, and failed to come up with any response, even though her teacher’s sympathetic gaze lingered.
The movie was disappointing. Sammy Davis, Jr., sang, but he didn’t dance—not as he had in Robin and the 7 Hoods, when he twirled guns, tap-danced on and off of a bar and a roulette table, and exuded boundless energy. Still, there were Vegas dancers in the background in several scenes, and Lily focused on those segments, memorizing every detail. The girls’ outfits were perfect—lots of plumage, bared legs with beautiful pointed heels and sky-high kicks.
After the film, people milled about in the lobby saying their goodbyes. Lily spotted a lovely woman standing beside the Aviator. His date wore an aqua jacket and skirt, and the collar of a bone-colored silk blouse peeked shyly from beneath her short jacket. She had brown hair cut just below chin level and a delicate nose. Rarified, Lily thought, like Jackie Kennedy—sophisticated, simple. But maybe just a little bit dull and unimaginative.
The Aviator left his date’s side and crossed the room to Lily. He took in the tall suede boots, the now much-wrinkled homemade dress, and he ran a hand across her hair, smoothing flyaway strands. His touch sent a shock through her. “You’re beautiful,” he said. Then he seemed to sense the intimacy of his grooming of her, and he shoved his hand into the pocket of his blazer. “You’re so grown-up,” he said wistfully before turning to find his date.
Lily stood there, becalmed, as she watched him walk away. It had never before occurred to her that the Aviator could have any woman in his life, other than Lily.
* * *
—
A FEW AFTERNOONS later, Aunt Tate found Lily at the sewing machine in the corner of the dining room and asked, “What are you working on?”
Other than perfunctory, necessary phrases, it was the first time Aunt Tate had spoken to her since the night of the fundraiser. Lily recognized the overture, released the pressure on the sewing machine’s knee-operated control lever, and peered up at her aunt, who looked completely enervated, as if she hadn’t slept in weeks. Aunt Tate was pathetic, Lily realized—a weak, albino stalk of a flower struggling to grow in the dark of a closet shelf.
I’ll escape, Lily thought, but this poor woman will never leave. I’m stronger than the both of them. And so, feeling somewhat conciliatory, Lily said, “This is my final project for Miss Lambkin’s class.” She held up the deep rose brocade. “It’ll be a lined evening-dress jacket, something I can wear over a skirt, maybe dress up with a piece of costume jewelry.” She’d already sewn a pair of bell-bottom pants out of the material and loved the way the fabric stretched across what some of the other dance students referred to as “the Grand Canyon of your hips.” That canyon took two hundred sit-ups a night on the rag rug next to Lily’s bed, but it was worth it.
“Pretty,” Aunt Tate said. “But it’s musty in here. You should open a window.” She touched Lily’s shoulder fleetingly, so lightly that it could instead have been the minute brush of a passing moth’s wings.
“Aunt Tate?”
Her aunt paused but kept her back to Lily as if she somehow knew that Lily was going to take that one, placatory gesture and use it to open a chasm in their lives.
“I’m not a liar. I never have been,” Lily said and watched her aunt’s back stiffen.
Without a word, Aunt Tate left the room, and soon Lily could hear her in the kitchen, putting together the evening meat loaf.
Lily sat with her hands in her lap. She picked a few spent threads from her jeans. It was only when she heard her aunt sniffle and then blow her nose that she knew Aunt Tate was remembering all the nights Uncle Miles had left their bed and made his way down the darkened hallway to Lily.
“But I do have a plan,” Lily said as the Aviator stood beside her. Although it was her day off, she was in the produce section of Masterson’s, doing Aunt Tate’s grocery shopping. A couple of women who’d been poking at the pears and cantaloupes looked up, but the Aviator charmed them with a smile, and they returned to their quest for peak ripeness. “I do have a plan,” Lily repeated.
“College?” He filled a paper produce bag with exactly seven Granny Smith apples and folded down the top with precision.
Lily snorted. “No.”
“Why not?”
“For starters, we can’t afford it.”
“But you can.”
“Right,” she said, looking at her aunt’s list, the one her uncle had added to in his left-handed, back-slanting cursive: dow nuts, choclut Marshmello cookys.
The radio station was playing the just released Beatles album, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, and Lily heard the lyrics of “She’s Leaving Home.” It was as if the Beatles had written the song just for her. The girl in the song stepped outside her front door and was free. Soon, Lily would do the same.
Seeing her distraction, the Aviator said, “Let’s talk in the parking lot.”
Lily sat in the passenger seat of the Aviator’s Thunderbird and double-checked the change the clerk had given her. She folded the receipt and shoved it all into the front pocket of her hip-hugger jeans.
“You’re a bright, bright girl,” the Aviator began, and she could smell his aftershave—a tart, citrus scent. He was wearing camel-colored khakis and a soft, white cotton shirt with the sleeves rolled loosely to his elbows. His fingernails were perfectly manicured, the nails buffed—a decided contrast to the decades of grease that accumulated beneath the nails of Uncle Miles’ sliced and diced mechanic’s hands.
“I’m a dancer. Not a college girl.”
“With an IQ of 155.”
“Who says?”
“Your guidance counselor.” He pushed in the cigarette lighter when he saw her shake a Salem from her pack.
“You were talking to Mrs. Holcomb about me?”
“I was.” He held the hot, orange coil of the lighter to the tip of her cigarette.
“I didn’t even know,” she said, rolling down the window and blowing smoke out into the parking lot. “I purposely did not go in to hear my scores.” Lily noticed that the Aviator smoked Marlboros. “Come to Marlboro Country,” she said, using her deepest voice to imitate the commercial. It fit the Aviator—the long, lean, isolated cowboy who was a man in every sense of the word. Took no guff, lived life his way.
He sighed. “I’m trying to have a meaningful conversation with you.”
“I know,” she said, pulling open the ashtray, tapping her cigarette. It didn’t surprise her that the Aviator’s ashtray looked as if it’d been washed clean in a sink. “You’re a bit of a neat freak, aren’t you?” she said.
“I like to do things right. Which is why I’m trying to talk to you.” Together they watched a young mother pushing a baby stroller while trying to pull up the strap of her shoulder bag. “You realize that 100 is average. A score of 155 is in what’s considered the very superior range.”
She hadn’t. All she knew was that when they took the test, she’d finished an easy twen
ty minutes before everyone else, and not because she’d put her pencil down and decided not to try.
“Let’s go at it from another angle,” the Aviator said, all efficiency and logic. “What is your plan?”
“To dance.”
“To dance.” He sighed. “A girl with an IQ of 155 should be capable of more specific planning. Even if she has been brought up by heathens.”
“You know, that’s what my dad called them. Heathens,” she said, looking at the Aviator, his upright posture, his flat abdomen. She saw something flash across his face—a mixture of pain and memory. “I’m sorry,” Lily said, touching his forearm. “I didn’t mean…”
“Do you see the irony of this?” he pleaded. “You? Apologizing to me?”
A soft rain had begun to fall, dotting the windshield with drops that ran until they randomly joined each other. Is that what people did, too? Lily wondered. Fall and drift until they collided with one another, the way the Aviator had collided with her ten years ago?
As he rested his fingertips between his brows, she realized her hand was still on his forearm, and she kept it there, increased the pressure. “You’ve been good to me,” she said. “Better to me than anyone else. I’ve always known I could depend on you.”
“Then let me help you. Let me help you with college. There’s money,” he said, now earnestly looking at her. “I’ve saved. You have a college fund. Please don’t throw your life away.”
She took back her hand, stared into her lap. “Thank you,” she said. “I’m grateful, really. But if you truly want to help me, then help me get to Las Vegas. To dance. That’s what I want.”
“Vegas?”
“Mrs. Baumgarten says it’s the best place for jazz dance. A place where I can learn from real pros. Accessible,” she said, coming up with the best word she could think of to summarize the perfection of her Baumgarten-assisted plan.
She watched him struggle with the idea, weighing his will against hers. Finally, he said, “That’s what you really want? You’re certain?”
“It’s the one thing I do know,” she said, simply.
“Well then. I won’t stand in the way of your dream.”
You can’t stand in my way, she thought but did not say. No one can.
She thought about explaining to him that dance was something she needed. How it purified her body. How, when she exerted herself physically, she felt the strength of her limbs, that they belonged only to her. That for however long she moved to music, Uncle Miles’ proprietary insistence became obsolete. But Lily didn’t explain. She could not pass through that stone wall from shameful shadow to bright sunlight—not even for the Aviator.
The rain came down more insistently, and through her open window it wet the sleeve of her paisley-patterned blouse. “I have to get going.” She used her sleeve to wipe water from the car upholstery. “Or I’ll catch hell.”
“That’s exactly what I’m afraid of,” he said, his voice soft, sad.
Taking the grocery bag into her arms and opening the car door, Lily pretended not to understand.
At dance class the next day, Mrs. Baumgarten delivered one of the Aviator’s books to Lily. It was a gilt-edged 1942 edition of Walt Whitman’s collected poems, and on a plain white strip of paper intended as a bookmark, the Aviator had written “The hungry gnaw that eats me night and day.” I understand this is your need to dance. She saw the line embedded in the poem “From Pent-Up Aching Rivers.” The gift, Lily thought, was not the book. It was his understanding.
* * *
—
IN THE WEE hours of the morning after she graduated as one of the top ten in the class of 1967, Lily left a bouquet of daisies on the dining room table. She set it next to a blouse she’d made for her aunt, along with a card that said Thank You on the front in silver embossed letters. Inside, Lily had written a paragraph of gratitude for taking her in, teaching her, and providing for her. She signed it with love because the other options—sincerely, fondly, best wishes—all seemed needlessly cruel. And maybe—in fact, honestly—she did love her aunt, despite everything. It was no one’s fault that they were mismatched, just as much or more so than Mama and Aunt Tate had been. And Aunt Tate really had done her best. She simply wasn’t capable of more—or she might long ago have left her husband. Escaped Salina.
Lily didn’t leave anything for Uncle Miles, certainly no forwarding address or information other than that she was leaving Kansas to dance. Then, Lily walked out of the house and climbed into the Aviator’s waiting car.
It was barely after four A.M. when she stood with him in the bus depot parking lot. About her neck Lily wore a fine gold chain on which she’d strung her mother’s engagement and wedding rings—a graduation gift from Aunt Tate. Lily pulled the rings from beneath her blouse, fingered them and thought of her mother’s hands dusted in flour, sewing a button on her father’s shirt, and teaching Lily how to tie her shoes. Had her mother braced those beautiful hands on the dashboard when she saw the Aviator’s car coming?
“I’m sorry I didn’t make you a gift,” Lily told him. “But nothing would have been enough, and I didn’t know what would say goodbye in the right way.”
The Aviator took her chin in his hand. He lifted her face, and for a moment she thought he might kiss her lips. A part of her wanted that. Instead, he slipped his thumb into the cleft of her chin, let it rest there, calm and steadying. She saw that he might cry, and so she took his wrist, closed her eyes, and kissed his beating pulse.
Leaving the Aviator was like leaving her real family, once and for all. The finality of it hit her, hard, and she felt her knees threatening to drop her to the pavement. Instead, she turned and walked into the bus terminal.
* * *
—
AT SOME POINT, every girl in Kansas dressed as Dorothy for Halloween. Pinafore, petticoat, simple white blouse, a straw basket for trick-or-treat candy, demure ankle socks, and red shoes. Goodbye, Dorothy, Lily thought, good riddance to you and all of your “There’s no place like home” bullshit.
Lily remembered when a teacher had told them that Kansas was once a vast inland sea. She’d hunted fossils with Beverly Ann and tried to imagine how change could have occurred on such a massive scale. She remembered the tadpoles she and Dawn had caught and watched grow. If Kansas could go from sea to prairie, if a frog egg could radically transform itself from an almost-fish with gills to an amphibian that left water for land, then Lily could transform, too.
At the Colorado border Lily decided that her new self deserved a fresh name. Lily Decker would become Ruby Wilde. She thought it worked—her dark red hair, the elegance lent by that extra e, like shoppe.
Lily looked at her palm, studying the lines of influence on her Mount of Venus at the base of her thumb. The lines were said to represent the friends, teachers, enemies, and lovers who change and shape existences. Lily had countless fine lines on her palm, and many of the lines touched, even traveled across her life line. She recognized the deep lines of her childhood: Aunt Tate, Uncle Miles. The Aviator. Her parents. Dawn.
People come and go, Lily thought. Sometimes they vanish unwillingly, the resulting break adamant, like a sharp slap of the ruler across the palm—decisive, unequivocal. Others leave with as little thought as the tip of the finger that snuffs out the life of an ant crawling across a pantry shelf.
Beyond her window, Lily saw fence posts and dull-eyed cattle. Black hawks circled, eyeing the ground for deer mice and lizards. Clouds coalesced and broke into discrete puffs. It was June 9, 1967, exactly ten years since her family had dissolved like sugar stirred into iced tea. Lily settled back into her seat and relaxed. She’d done it. Ruby Wilde was on her way.
She waited until the bus was safely within the boundaries of Nevada before opening the Aviator’s envelope.
June 9, 1967
Dear Lily,
There is mor
e where this came from, but this is a start. It should help you to pay your rent and eat decently for a few months, until you find your place in the limelight. You haven’t seen much of the world, and I don’t know if you realize what an unforgiving place it can be. Be careful and pay attention.
If you need anything, call me.
Yours,
Stirling
Unforgiving? He must be kidding. She had already plummeted into the depths of that word, deeper than the Aviator could ever imagine.
He’d enclosed four fifty-dollar bills that looked as if they’d never seen daylight. She discreetly tucked them into her pink leather wallet, wary of the prying eyes of the passenger next to her. Ever since he’d boarded the bus in Utah, she’d felt him watching her. She refolded the Aviator’s letter and slipped it into her fringed leather shoulder bag.
Although they were excruciatingly close to her final destination, the bus pulled into a rest stop in Glendale, Nevada. After freshening up, she sat at the luncheonette counter, smoking and thinking that even though it was after ten P.M., she needed either a chocolate malt or a cup of coffee.
“Would you mind?” the watchful man from the bus asked, pointing to the stool next to hers.
“No.” She crushed her cigarette and decided her first Nevada meal would be ice cream. She laid down the menu as a signal to the waitress. The man had shaved, and now he smelled of Right Guard and Aqua Velva.
“May I treat?” he asked.
Ruby spun her stool and looked at him. He was probably about forty, forty-five, wore a wrinkled gray suit, a burgundy tie, and a gold tie bar. His face was soft, round, and he was balding, with outsized red ears. The man’s smile was friendly, and she decided to let him be gentlemanly. “Sure,” she said, “but I’m a cheap date—just a chocolate malt.”
All the Beautiful Girls Page 6