“It’s not Avon,” Ruby said, smiling into his florid face.
“Yeah, well, I didn’t think there was any way it could be.” He sighed.
* * *
—
AND YET, IT wasn’t enough. The other showgirls didn’t understand Ruby’s need to feel she belonged to something bigger than the dance stage or the neon of Vegas. She refused to become another vapid showgirl who only knew clothes and shoes, jewels, and which gambler was the most likely to whisk a girl off to the Virgin Islands. The world was bigger—so much bigger than that, and Ruby’s mind craved a wider horizon.
She was rarely home or awake to catch the news, but Ruby read the Las Vegas Sun religiously, listened to the radio, subscribed to Time and Life magazines so that she could keep up with what was happening in the world. Sometimes, the magazines stacked up for weeks before she got to them.
The November 10, 1967, cover of Life pictured the Leningrad Music Hall Girls—women dressed in white-and-silver miniskirts with matching white-blonde pageboy wigs. They wore elbow-length white gloves and silver heels that came nowhere near the stilettos in Ruby’s closet, but still—the dancers were far more glamorous than Ruby would have imagined. It was an image starkly at odds with the dumpy, black-and-white world she’d been taught was life in the USSR. This wasn’t a dour, stingy world, and the animated lines of beautiful women told her sex was alive and well, even under Communist Party leader Leonid Brezhnev.
She put the magazine in an oversized envelope for the Aviator, along with a letter detailing the latest in her life at the Sunglow Apartments with Rose and Vivid. She didn’t tell him about the after-hours part of her job, but she wrote about how different she thought her showgirl life was from that of the Russian women she saw pictured in the article. Ruby added a copy of the Theatre Restaurant menu from the Tropicana to the envelope. It was a lovely lilac shade, with an illustration of three topless women as statuesque Greek columns. Inside, she circled the Breast of Chicken Sauté entrée, and wrote It comes with risotto! Now that’s on my have-tried list—have you ever tasted it? Delicious!
The Aviator responded with a letter telling her he’d never flown U-2 missions over the Soviet Union—not like Gary Powers, whom the Russians had shot down in 1960, he reminded her. As if he still thought she was a naïve young girl, he added The Soviets have to be watched. They pose the greatest threat to American liberty. Take the Cold War seriously.
And then, a few days later, he sent War and Peace—to keep you out of trouble and stretch your mind. Ruby smiled when she read his note. The Aviator was like her—he never gave up. He might even qualify as relentless.
Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo. The astronauts descended on Vegas like gods. Bona fide heroes, they were paraded along the Strip, cheered on as men who had braved the great unknown and fallen back to earth to tell the tale. The disaster of January 1967, when all three astronauts of Apollo 1 burned to death, brought home the very real dangers of their work, and the nation felt it, honored it. No one else possessed anything close to the kind of charismatic mystery that clung to the astronauts as they rode in the backseats of convertibles and waved to adoring crowds. America needed its heroes more than ever; Vietnam was not providing much in the way of glorious victory.
Ruby was swept along, just like everyone else. And maybe only a man of astronaut caliber could pull her willingly into bed, at last.
Kyle had the gold pin that proved he’d flown in space, and he knew all the constellations. He had the lean, muscled torso of an astronaut, the closely cropped hair with sharp spikes of silver and gray, the angular, clean-shaven face. He had the bearing that proved he was a man of rigorous self-discipline. And he had a brunette wife with a beehive hairdo and two small, well-scrubbed children—all of whom had appeared in a Look magazine color photo spread entitled “Take a Peek: Astronauts at Home.”
Ruby was in the grocery store reaching for a carton of Salems when the man beside her said, “I had quit, but while in Rome—” She only glanced at him—another man hitting on her, even though she was off duty, just a long-legged eighteen-year-old in a black twill miniskirt, braless beneath a pale green tank top, and makeup free. She could feel him beside her—a physical presence that was so solid and steadying, it made her think of the Aviator. That was why she gave Kyle “Chip” Casperson a second look, why she spoke to him.
“Why deprive yourself?” she asked, smiling. “I gave that up for Lent and never looked back.”
“Self-deprivation?”
“Any kind of deprivation. My motto is indulge.”
He laughed and reached for a single pack of Camels. His hands were beautifully shaped, with long, nimble fingers. He wore no ring. Later, Kyle told her it was because rings could get caught in instrumentation, and he wanted to keep all of his fingers.
But then, in that moment when she first met him, he looked to be a handsome man without ties—a man who was drawn to Ruby not as a feathered sex symbol but simply as a woman in need of a smoke. She dropped the carton of Salems into her handbasket, smiled and wished him a good day.
“Who are you?” he said.
“What?” She paused, turned back toward him.
“I know you.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Don’t you know me?” he asked.
“I don’t think so,” she repeated.
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “We do know each other. Somehow.” He stopped smiling, looked intently into her face, tilted his head in thought. Ruby felt a sunburst sensation in her chest. When he held out his hand, his grip was warm, satisfyingly firm. “Kyle Casperson.”
The name was familiar, but she couldn’t place it. “Ruby Wilde,” she said.
“A cup of coffee? Someplace close? Just to find out.” He smiled once more.
“To find out…” she said, letting suspicion enter her tone.
“That we know each other.”
Why not? she asked herself. A cup of coffee was easy enough, and she had the time. She double-checked her basket; there weren’t any frozen items.
A flustered waitress in the diner recognized Chip Casperson, said the coffees were on the house. He grinned across the table at Ruby, who smiled back, pretending that her heart rate hadn’t just skyrocketed.
“The astronaut and the showgirl,” Kyle said when she revealed her profession. “Sounds like one of Aesop’s fables.”
“The moral being?” Ruby flicked ash from the end of her cigarette.
“Sparks. Ignition. Out-of-this-world sensations.”
“Oh my.”
“Indeed.”
He came to her show at the Tropicana, watched her perform, and she put forth more of an effort than she had in some time. Her kicks were higher, her turns crisper. When she looked back over her shoulder as a Dean Martin stand-in sang “Standing on the Corner,” she caught Kyle’s eye and widened her smile. At the end of the show, she watched him stand to applaud, saw him encourage the rest of the audience to rise. As people recognized Chip Casperson, they turned their applause to him.
Backstage, he sat and watched wordlessly as she removed her makeup. Usually, the dressing rooms were a riot of gossip, commentary, and tales of who was winning at the gaming tables and who’d jetted to Paris with some big spender. Tonight the showgirls were subdued, maybe a little awed by Kyle’s presence.
He came up behind Ruby, and while the other girls looked on enviously, he circled her body with his hands. She felt the silk of her kimono warm to his touch. She tilted her head backward until it rested against his chest, and she closed her eyes. As always after a performance, she was physically tired, but it lent her a kind of languor that helped her to relax.
He put his lips next to her ear, whispered, “Please, beautiful. Let’s get out of here.”
The Sands had comped him a suite in the hotel’s new, seventeen-story tower that boa
sted a lucky 777 rooms. Jack Entratter’s Copa Girls performed in the Copa Room, and Sinatra and Farrow had married at the Sands in ’66. The Copa featured Sammy Davis, Jr., Dinah Shore, the Everly Brothers, and more mundane events like a gin rummy tournament touted to be the richest card contest in the world. The casino also advertised widely that it had astronaut Chip Casperson as its guest.
Kyle’s suite was bigger than three of the Sunglow Apartments combined, with what seemed like a football field’s expanse of peacock blue carpeting and white modern furniture arranged in several groupings, as if conversation circles were a regular event in such a room. Wall sconces in the shape of candelabras glowed against the pale blue walls, and vast windows followed the curve of the tower. Ruby stood looking out at the lights of the Strip, and she stretched her eyes past the city’s garish neon to the darkness that fell away to desert and wilderness.
Kyle offered her champagne—there were half a dozen bottles chilling, gifts from well-wishers. She shook her head. Ruby wanted to do this without numbing herself. She wanted to experience what was spooling out before her in the cavernous room with the biggest bed she’d ever seen, a bed decked in white as if it were an immense, virginal wedding cake.
“I feel as if I’m on my honeymoon,” she said when he held her. She smelled a spicy aftershave, and beneath that the antiseptic scent of Dial soap.
“Let it be a honeymoon,” he said. “Let this be whatever you want it to be.” He bent and kissed her neck.
“I’m about to go weak in the knees,” she confessed, and he sat her on the edge of the bed, knelt to slip off her simple black pumps. She’d dressed down for Kyle, dressed in defiance of her showgirl glitz in a simple black sheath dress with a minimal string of pearls. She stood so that he could unzip her dress, and he let it fall from her to pool about her bare feet.
“Good lord,” he said, stepping back to look at her in her black lace bra and panties.
“Don’t pretend surprise,” she said, smiling. “You’ve seen more of me than this onstage.”
“It’s a sight I could never grow tired of.” He slipped out of his perfectly polished wing tips and unbuckled his belt.
They left the bedside lamp on. She pulled down the covers, lay back on the bed in her lingerie, watching him remove his shirt, his boxer shorts. She saw a flicker of vulnerability cross his face and reached her arms up to him. He eased onto the bed beside her.
“Don’t get lost,” he said, referring to the absurdly huge bed, but Ruby understood him on a different level. She had to stay in the room, in this bed, with this man. She would not hover up near the glitter-spangled ceiling or sit in a chair, watching at a place of safe remove. She believed a national hero wouldn’t harm her—of that she was certain. He was a patriot, a man who could be trusted. As long as you weren’t his wife, that is.
“What are you smiling about?” he asked, catching her expression.
“Being here. With you,” she covered.
“Good.”
“Very good,” she said.
She had only Uncle Miles to compare Kyle to, but she recognized Kyle as a gentle, self-assured lover. He took his time, worshipped her body, wasn’t afraid to emit sounds of gratification. And, he was just as pretty as she was, Ruby thought—the muscle, the tanned skin, the jubilantly curling chest hairs. The scent of him, of them.
“Kyle,” she said his name, arching her back and lifting her pelvis toward his lips and tongue. He ran his lips down the length of one of her thighs, and she trembled with pleasure. He crawled back up the length of her body, took one of her nipples into his mouth, and just barely set his teeth on her raised nipple. “Oh!” she moaned.
“Tell me what you like,” he said, his breath warm against her cheek.
Ruby fought back a tinge of panic. What I like? she thought. Her experience to date was a mantra of pleading, Please, make it quick; get it over with. Fleetingly, she felt sorry for herself, that she would be surprised by the concept of sex as something pleasurable. “Anything. Everything,” she breathed.
“You’re on the pill?” he asked, and she shook her head.
“Diaphragm,” she said, glad that months ago Vivid had told her to just go get fitted for one and learn how to use it. “Already in place,” she added.
She was surprised when he entered her; it was not the traditionally dry, painful thing that it had been with Uncle Miles. She felt the curve of Kyle’s penis hit her in precisely the right spot. He teased her, put just the tip in, withdrew, made her want to call out for more. Tip, withdrawal, tip and tease, withdrawal. It drove her crazy with want, and she pulled him to her with all the strength of her arms, said, “Stay. Don’t go. Stay.”
He began to move quickly then, no longer holding back, unable to hold back. She felt her orgasm take hold of her, practically deprive her of consciousness. She didn’t know if she spoke or not, if she made any sound. She simply felt her body tense, consumed with heat, felt her thoughts evaporate, felt only pure, unadulterated physical sensation.
Kyle stayed inside her, still hard enough to begin moving again, to let her have another, less intense orgasm. This time she felt her nails dig in to the small of his back, and she managed to stop herself from leaving marks his wife would discover.
When he pulled out, she felt a pit open inside her. She felt intense, instant loneliness. She wanted to cry into the crook of his neck, say, Don’t leave me, don’t leave me, don’t go. It was a sudden, unbidden, wholly physical ache of abandonment that she could not comprehend, could only feel. Ruby turned her head and buried her face in the pillow.
“Where are you going?” Kyle asked, taking hold of her shoulder and tenderly rolling her to face him. “What, Ruby? What have I done?” he asked, seeing her expression.
“It’s nothing you’ve done. Or not done,” she said. “I don’t know what it is.”
“But that was extraordinary,” he said, kissing her.
“It was,” she said. “It was, Kyle.”
“So, what?”
“I don’t know.” She touched his cheek with her fingertips, ran the knuckle of her index finger along the seashell curve of his ear, thought about him splashing down into the ocean in a capsule that had traveled through blackness.
“Does it have anything to do with those pearlescent scars?” he asked.
Ruby blushed, fumbled for an answer she didn’t have.
“You hide them well, and that can’t be easy wearing only a G-string.” He waited, and when Ruby remained silent, he said, “I had a girlfriend once. Before my wife.” He reached for his Camels and offered her one. She shook her head. “She used to cut herself, too,” he said, flicking a silver lighter with the NASA emblem engraved on its polished surface.
The last thing Ruby wanted to do was to explain herself. What would she say? Uh, Kyle, it, um, er—it makes me feel better. It releases something, that’s all I know. She’d never spoken about it to anyone, and she didn’t intend to start tonight. Or rather this morning, she thought, seeing by the bedside clock that it was after four A.M.
“I’m sorry,” he said, moving the cut-glass ashtray to rest on his chest. “I shouldn’t have pried. You don’t have to talk about it. Not if you don’t want to.” He crushed the last of his cigarette and rolled to face her. “But you have to admit that I was right,” he said, brushing hair from her forehead.
“About?”
“Us. About knowing you. About you knowing me.”
“Yes. You were.” Ruby took his hand, turned it palm up beneath the light from the bedside lamp. “Your fingertips,” she said, squeezing them between her thumb and middle finger. “They’re padded.”
“Padded?”
“They’re not flat or stingy. They’re the fingertips of a sensitive person. And see this?” she said, pointing to the small mount beneath his index finger. “This is Jupiter. It’s associated with ambition, p
ride, leadership, and honor. And yours is well developed.” He pulled his hand from hers for a moment to take a better look at his palm. “But this is what most interests me,” she said, taking back his hand and squeezing the mount below his ring finger. “This is the mount of Apollo. It’s associated with creativity and artistry. And this is your most developed mount.”
“Meaning?” he asked.
“Well, combining that with your sensitive fingertips, I’d say you were an artist of some kind. Not a man who hurtles through space.” She laughed and let go of his hand. “So much for palmistry.”
“Actually,” he said, thoughtful, “that’s my dream. I write—mostly short stories, nothing great, but it’s what I truly love.”
Ruby sat up, rearranged the pillows behind her, and Kyle joined her. “That explains pearlescent.” She smiled. “But stories about what? Space?”
“Mostly about nature, things I see when I hike or walk the seashore. Stories I see in the people I encounter.”
“And what do you do with your stories?” She hesitated, afraid he’d tell her he read them to his wife.
“Send them to The Saturday Evening Post, magazines like that.”
“I’d think they’d jump at the chance to publish something written by an astronaut.”
“I don’t use my real name. The same way I suspect you don’t use your real name.”
“But can I read one?” Ruby asked, ignoring the hint that he wanted to know who was tucked away behind Ruby Wilde.
“Not until someone actually publishes one.” His disappointment was evident.
“You can send me one,” she said. “Don’t make me wait for a magazine.”
“I could,” he said, smiling. “But in the meantime—” He tickled her, and, giggling, she tried to capture his fast-moving wrists. “I’m here for a week, and I intend to see a great deal of you—whatever your name is.” He grinned.
All the Beautiful Girls Page 14