All the Beautiful Girls

by Elizabeth J. Church

  With his hip black mustache, dangling cigarette, and the worried-looking inverted V of his eyebrows, Sammy called upon his vaudevillian roots and charmed them all. He told jokes; he sang. He tap-danced speedy, intricate rhythms to standing ovations. He wore plaid bell-bottomed pants, never once tripped over the microphone cable, and never, ever complained about the abysmal sound systems, the slapdash stages, the dust, the dirt, the bugs, the food, or the fear. As if he were a tourist, he took hundreds of photos. He posed in hundreds more.

  Da Nang, Vu˜ng Tàu, Freedom Hill, China Beach, Golden Gate, Liberty Center. Càn Tho Army Airfield. Long Bình and Cam Ranh Bay. In the streets of the bigger cities, a cacophony of horns sounded; motorcycles and scooters, bicycles and Citroëns and cars from a bygone era zoomed noisily past; advertisements touted beer, cigarettes, Coca-Cola, and even photocopies. The scent of exotic foods and spices mingled with the odor of shit.

  Some of the locations where they performed were relatively plush, with air-conditioning and hot meals; in others, Ruby could see burned buildings and evidence of recent skirmishes with the Vietcong. She saw beautiful, mist-topped mountains, rice paddies that stretched for miles, hills and rivers. She learned about elephant grass with razor-sharp edges that grew up to fifteen feet high and was so thick it dropped men’s visibility to less than a yard. She danced on hastily constructed wooden stages as small as six by eight feet, beneath corrugated-tin shelters, and to the twanging of pianos that couldn’t hold a tune.

  Often emulating Ann-Margret, Ruby wore a turtleneck with nothing but black tights and high-heeled boots, and she gave all she had to young men who sat cross-legged in the dirt beneath a merciless sun. One afternoon, she splashed and laughed and swam with an infantry squad in a crater that had been made weeks earlier by a two-thousand-pound bomb.

  She was surprised by the men’s sweetness, their quiet respectfulness. They called her miss and held doors for her. They eyed her with lust and longing, but not a one ever said anything stupid or insulting. These men didn’t own her. They took her presence as a gift and a privilege, not a purchase made.

  She saw young men. Not privileged, escapist college students. Not fading middle-aged men. They were eighteen, nineteen, and twenty—and she saw lean, muscled men with honest tans. She didn’t see a single basketball-sized gut or ratty toupee. She saw men who’d come to realize what mattered in life, and it was not a gold pinky ring or a trip to the Bahamas.

  * * *

  —

  SHE GLIMPSED THE ghosts of the French in the food she ate, the architecture and faded signs.

  And she wondered why the United States was fighting for this country—a place so impoverished that people squatted by the side of the road to defecate, not caring who watched. Children not even seven years old would run up to her and beg for cigarettes. Ruby felt guilty about everything she had back home—her fur coats, her savings account balance, and her jewelry—even her modest apartment with running water. People passed her pulling overloaded carts as if they were beasts of burden. She saw malnourished children, children who were missing legs and who hobbled along meager dirt paths using homemade wooden staffs.

  They performed at camps and fire support bases, hospitals and rehab centers. Some of the audiences were ten thousand strong; others numbered under fifty. Their helicopter would land, and Sammy would immediately jump out, start strumming his guitar and singing as he walked through the soldiers who came to greet and thank him. He took to wearing a canteen on his belt and was seemingly tireless.

  “They’re lonesome,” Sammy would say to Ruby. “Go mingle.” And mingle she did. Those were the times that meant the most to her, when she could sit and actually converse with the soldiers. They drank lukewarm beer together in air so thick with humidity that Ruby felt it could be stirred like a chowder. Some of them talked willingly, needfully, about their lives. Others stared at nothing and moved in a world inaccessible to anyone but themselves. She memorized it all, collected stories to bring back to Javier. And then, at night, Ruby lay awake and listened to the distant boom of artillery.

  “You want to know what it’s like?” a staff sergeant with the 9th Cavalry said, sitting on an overturned wooden crate, dirt lining the creases of his neck like the halting beginnings of a misbegotten tattoo. “Then do this. When you get back to the world, load a pack with eighty-five pounds. Strap it on. Step into the shower with all your clothes on. Stand there under the water for three days. Shut off the water every few minutes and stay there. Before your clothes can even think about drying out, turn that water back on. Keep standing there.” He was tall, lean, and he had sharp, unambiguous features that made her think of the Aviator. His helmet said SGT Ben.

  “Your feet will rot,” he continued. “You’ve got a good forty-five mosquito bites on one arm alone. You’ve got the shits. You haven’t bathed in months; you wash your clothes by walking through a muddy river.”

  Ruby didn’t know what to say, but soon enough she realized he didn’t need or want a response. Sergeant Ben was just talking. Just talking.

  And she listened.

  * * *

  —

  “MAYBE YOU SHOULD drink more water,” Darlene said. “You could be dehydrated or something. The men told me if you mix it with Kool-Aid, it disguises the bad taste.”

  They were sitting in the oven-hot shade of a tent, and Ruby was so nauseated that she didn’t feel she could safely stand.

  “When’d you last eat?”

  Ruby shook her head. Even the thought of food made her ill. The putrid smells were getting to her—the omnipresent rot of the place. She was ready to go home. She missed Javier.

  “At least let me ask one of the USO girls for some saltines,” Darlene said, already parting the tent flaps.

  Ruby lay back on the cot. Flies hovered mere inches from her face, and she swatted uselessly at them.

  She knew what this was. There was no more fooling herself. She was pregnant.

  She covered her eyes with her forearm and begged the world to stop spinning.

  * * *

  —

  SHE WAS BACK in the dry Vegas heat. Ruby thought she’d treat them both to a steak dinner and tell Javier then. She pictured candlelight, holding hands across a nice linen tablecloth, the weight of quality silverware, an obsequious waiter. They’d celebrate, even though she thought that maybe once she got back to the apartment she would fall into bed and sleep for weeks. She was so excited to see him again, to touch him. Mostly, she looked forward to seeing his face when she told him. Everything was on track, their dream on the cusp of fulfillment.

  She’d brought him a souvenir white T-shirt with a drawing of a plane in navy blue ink. In a sardonic take on the United Airlines slogan, it read Fly the Friendly Skies of Vietnam! For herself, she’d bought a skintight satin cheongsam in deep rose-and-pink tones with lilting green leaves and white blossoms. The dress fit Ruby’s skin tones perfectly. Maybe she’d wear it to their special dinner—and then likely have to put it away until after the baby was born. She’d have to stop dancing soon enough, but pregnancy was a fitting end to her showgirl career, a perfect start to their San Francisco plan.

  Ruby waited for over forty-five minutes in front of the airport, her suitcase at her feet. She had to pee, but she was afraid of missing Javier when he pulled up to get her. She waited another fifteen minutes and at last gave up, picking up her bag and returning to the interior of the airport to use the restroom.

  Sitting on the toilet, she thought about what a relief it was to be back in modern America, with flush toilets, running water, and essentially clean floors. But as she tore a strip of soft toilet paper from the roll, she worried: Was Javier sick? Had he been hurt? If he was all right, wouldn’t he have called the airport, had her paged to one of the white courtesy phones? Or he’d have asked Vivid or Rose or Dee to come get her. Something was wrong. She pushed down a growing ball of pan
ic, told herself that maybe it was a flat tire. Don’t borrow trouble, she cautioned her reflection in the mirror over the sink. Everything will be all right.

  When the cab dropped her off at the Sunglow Apartments, she noticed her Karmann Ghia parked out front. Javier’s van, however, was nowhere to be seen. It made sense—if any vehicle broke down, it would be that dilapidated thing.

  Ruby took the spare key from beneath the mat and pushed open the door. The apartment smelled musty, unused, lonely. She dropped her bag beside the couch and opened the blinds, and then she walked into the bedroom.

  Javier’s camera wasn’t on the bureau. There were no dirty clothes on the floor. Ruby opened the closet. His blazer, his spare pair of jeans, his boots, and his Nehru jacket were all gone. So were her furs.

  She opened the dresser drawer where she kept her boxes of jewelry—the necklaces, rings, bracelets, and earrings of gold, platinum, diamonds, rubies. It was empty.

  She walked back into the living room, realizing Iago had not yelled “Oye! Elisa!” when she came through the door. The cage was gone. And so was Javier.

  * * *

  —

  “I HAVEN’T SEEN his van for a couple of days,” Vivid said when Ruby knocked on her door. “Come in and have a drink. I’m making G and T’s.”

  Numbly, Ruby followed Vivid into her kitchen. “I think he’s gone for good this time,” she said.

  “Sure it’s not just another one of his fits?” Vivid squeezed a wedge of lime into each tumbler and handed a glass to Ruby. “Maybe he’s just letting you know you shouldn’t have gone off without him?” Vivid walked into the living room and sat on the couch, and Ruby followed.

  “The parrot’s gone.”

  “Oh. Well…” Vivid hesitated, took a sip of her drink. “I guess that pretty much says it all, doesn’t it?”

  Ruby nodded mutely.

  “Well, listen, kiddo. I know you don’t want to hear this, but maybe it’s for the best.”

  “I’m pregnant.”

  “Shit.”

  Ruby took a deep breath and then swallowed half her drink.

  “I know someone,” Vivid said. “I mean, if you want to take that route.”

  “I don’t know.” Ruby shook her head. “I mean, on the flight back, all I was thinking about was cute little baby clothes and cribs and bottles and walking along the wharf in San Francisco, carrying my baby in one of those slings.” She squeezed her eyes shut, took another deep breath.

  “You can’t dance pregnant.”

  “I know. But I would have a couple months left to earn a little more, save more money. Before I start to show.”

  “And then what?”

  “Oh, Vivid, I don’t know!” Ruby’s voice rose with panic. “I don’t know about San Francisco without him. I mean—” She stopped as her voice broke, and she fought for control.

  “I’m sorry. It’s too soon for me to be asking all these questions. Of course you don’t know. But as you say, you have a few months—to dance, to make up your mind about keeping it. Her. Him. Shit. ‘It’ sounds awful, doesn’t it?”

  “That motherfucker,” Ruby said.

  “Total fuckwad.”

  “You warned me.”

  “Yeah, well, I wasn’t in love with him.”

  “He pretended he was okay with it, with Vietnam. He promised me.”

  “One more Javier Borrero lie,” Vivid said.

  “I’m a total fucking idiot.”

  “Well”—Vivid smiled—“you’re not a total idiot.”

  “Fuck me.”

  “No, fuck him. And the boat he came in on,” Vivid said, raising her glass for a toast.

  * * *

  —

  RUBY SAT ON the floor of the shower, letting the water run over her as if she could cleanse herself of Javier. He was gone. She tried to think Good riddance, but she couldn’t quite believe that. She felt crushed, abandoned. Lost. Stupid. Humiliated. She’d dismissed her friends’ opinions as ill-informed, thought they just couldn’t see what she saw. He’d thoroughly played her.

  At least she hadn’t ever posed for the nude photos he’d wanted to take. She shook her head, imagining what he would have done with them.

  But now, what would she do, who would she be without him?

  Maybe he’d come back. Maybe, maybe, maybe, as Janis Joplin sang. He always had. This time, he’d just made it look as though he’d gone for good—that was how angry he’d been, hiding it all beneath a veneer of understanding and good humor. Or maybe he’d truly tried to change but found himself unable to carry through. After all, the truth was that she’d pushed him too far. She knew how much he needed to be the man, the top dog—and she’d emasculated him by heading across the world to be with thousands of soldiers. She’d left him behind. She’d abandoned him.

  But if he came back, could she forgive him for the furs, the jewelry? Had he maybe even been pilfering her jewelry all along, hocking it? Was that how he’d paid for San Francisco? At least she’d kept her mother’s rings on the chain about her neck—her good-luck charm in Vietnam. She held the rings between her fingers now, feeling their reassuring solidity.

  When the hot water ran out, she stepped out of the shower. Feeling hollowed out, Ruby crawled between the sheets that still smelled of Javier. Much to her amazement she slept deeply, dreamlessly.

  * * *

  —

  THE NEXT AFTERNOON, Ruby forced herself to run errands. Her first stop was the bank; she needed to get some cash before picking up groceries. She stood at the cubbyholed desk in the lobby, filled out a withdrawal slip, and waited in line for the next teller.

  “Hi, Kate.” Ruby slid the withdrawal slip across the counter.

  “Hey, Ruby,” Kate said, looking over the slip. “Hold on, all right?”

  The teller walked over to her supervisor, a man who wore bow ties and wing tips and looked as if he was and always would be a fussy bachelor living with his neurotic, widowed mother. He returned to the window with Kate.

  “Miss Wilde?” he asked.

  “What is it?” Ruby was only pulling $125. Her savings account held well over $75,000.

  “You don’t have this much in your account,” he said, pointing to Ruby’s figures on the slip.

  Ruby laughed. “Of course I do! You know that! Kate?” She looked pleadingly at the teller’s familiar face.

  “Maybe we should go into my office,” he suggested.

  “No,” Ruby said, standing her ground despite the sharp drop she felt in her stomach. Had everything gone to hell in the short time she’d been gone? “Please,” she said. “Just tell me what’s happened to my money.”

  “Kate, get the file off of my desk, would you?” Kate scurried off, obviously glad to be out of the line of fire.

  Ruby drummed her fingertips on the counter while the flustered little man fiddled uselessly with papers, stacking them, making sure the edges were even. When Kate returned, he took the folder and pulled out a document. Pushing it across the counter, he said, “You’ll see this is a notarized statement. With your signature.”

  The document was titled “Change of Account Status,” and it indicated that Ruby was converting her account to a joint account, with Javier Borrero as the second signatory. She could feel the raised impression of the notary’s seal, and at the bottom of the page was a nearly perfect rendition of her signature.

  Ruby looked up into the faces of the two bank employees. “I did not complete this form.”

  “It’s notarized,” the little man said, as if notarization meant God himself had blessed it.

  “So what? It’s a lie. This document is a lie, a forgery.”

  “We had no reason to distrust it.” He adjusted his bow tie as if it had suddenly become a garrote. “Everything was in order.”

  Kate took a cautiona
ry step back from the counter and then said, “You came in with him all the time, Ruby. You sent him to cash your casino checks. We saw you here together.” Her voice was plaintive, wheedling. “He said you were all the way in Vietnam, that you needed for him to cash in your account. We left fifty dollars, just to cover any outstanding checks.”

  “You have to make this right! Someone has to make this right.” Ruby closed her eyes briefly. Someone needed to make her entire life right, to undo all that Javier had done.

  “It’s out of our hands. We followed bank procedure,” the little man said. “You could try filing a federal complaint for theft. But I don’t know—”

  “You let him take everything!” Ruby said, and although she could hear herself talking, she couldn’t really feel her feet or her legs. This wasn’t real. It wasn’t possible.

  “I’m sorry,” Kate said.

  “Yes,” the supervisor added as Ruby turned and walked away, across the lobby. She felt dazed and weak, as if she were stumbling through some awful dream world. This was not happening.

  She pushed open the glass doors and stepped onto the hot sidewalk, shading her eyes from stark, piercing sunlight. Lord, I’ve seen the light, she thought, coming to the street corner. Now, please let me be, she begged. No more. Coming home to the empty apartment had dropped her to her knees; this theft of everything she had worked for felled her completely, left her crawling. Were the gods laughing? Was she sufficiently entertaining? She could go no lower. She was scraping her belly along sharp gravel.

  I am the stupidest woman alive, she thought. Record-breaking stupid. She opened her shoulder bag to find her sunglasses.

  The 1968 Dodge Dart sedan struck Ruby’s legs and tossed her up onto its hood. Her head hit the windshield, sending cracks across the glass like splintering ice. Ruby bounced off of the car and onto the asphalt, where her now unconscious body rolled for another fifteen feet before coming to rest in front of Vernon’s Olde Time Ice Cream Parlor.