Vivian In Red

by Kristina Riggle

  “I didn’t mean to confuse you, kid, but that’s not the way it works. It was my song. Mine and Allen’s.”

  Vivian stood up roughly, unsteadily, in doing so stumbling out of one shoe. “I threw over Mark Bell because that song was partly mine and it was going to be a hit.”

  While Milo’s panicky mind tried to understand what she was saying, he looked around on the ground for her shoe, as if the shoe was what mattered. It was all he could think to do.

  “What are you talking about? You said you hadn’t been seeing much of him.”

  Her laugh was harsh, like a slap. “Oh, Milo, I’ve been seeing all of him. All the time, too. Who do you think really paid for that apartment? Did you honestly think I’d know a girlfriend rich enough to have a place like that?”

  Milo gave up on the shoe. Still on his haunches, he looked up at her, mouth hanging open.

  Vivian smirked. “I thought you were just pretending along with me, so we didn’t have to admit it out loud, but you really bought all that? Poor little Milo. You grew up in the greatest city in the world and you know so very little.”

  Milo rose unsteadily, wondering why he felt ashamed when she’d been the one living as… Bell’s concubine. A kept woman. He thought back to her fine dresses, the short fur jacket she liked to wear. The morning after the night they spent together, she’d given him the bum’s rush with some story about a nosy landlady… Bell was probably on his way over, right then.

  Milo still couldn’t find his voice, so Vivian filled the silence. “Look at you, like you’re going to be sick. Well anyway, it’s over now, like I said. I’m not a fool, Milo. I knew that was no way to live, not forever. I knew he’d get tired of me soon enough when a dewy-eyed chorus girl turned his head. But it didn’t matter, because I’d helped you write a hit song. And you said I saved the song. I know you did.”

  “I don’t remember that… We didn’t even talk about credit…”

  “I didn’t know we had to talk about it. I didn’t know I’d have to plead for what’s rightfully my share.”

  Milo took off his hat and scratched his head. It wasn’t exactly fear of Vivian that was running him through with such a sick, scary feeling. It was a sense that something in the world had tilted sideways, bizarre, like that weird painting where clocks were melting over trees that he saw once at the MoMa: everything was going crazy wrong and he didn’t know why.

  “Vivian, it’s just not the way it’s done. I’m sorry, but—”

  “It’s Allen, isn’t it? That bastard said no. You always do everything he wants, don’t you? Loyal Milo who just hops-to at his word.”

  “I do not!”

  “You quit your Harms job because he said so! You took the Hilarity job because he said so! You took on this show because he said so! Why don’t you stand up and be a man for once?”

  “I am a man!” Milo bellowed. “Don’t you ever say that to me again!”

  Vivian’s expression flashed fear. Milo noticed his posture then, he was leaning forward, his finger was out and he’d apparently jabbed or shaken it right in her face. He drew back, and stared at his own hand in wonder.

  Stricken, Milo looked up in time to see Vivian’s face go from slackened fright to hard bright anger. Something about her eyes glinting in the yellow lamppost light made him think of a dark, many-faceted jewel.

  “And a man doesn’t share credit with a girl, then? He steals her work and takes her to bed and then he’s off to live his life and to hell with the broad anyway.”

  “I’ll help you get a job, I swear I will, if this show does great, how’d you like to come work for me, huh? You can be my secretary, and you won’t have to worry about getting fired—”

  Vivian laughed then, shrilly, so loud that people whipped their heads around to stare. “You want to buy me. Same as Bell did, only you’re doing it smarter, aren’t you, Short? Heaven forbid you just marry me, no, I have to earn my keep with you?”

  “Vivian, but I already said—”

  “I know what you already said! But that was before you boffed me like I was the last woman on earth, and I was stupid enough to believe that meant… But to you I’m just a shiksa whore and not worth wiping your shoes on.”

  Milo stepped close to her so maybe she’d stop shouting, his heart thrashing around in his chest, feeling like he was at Coney Island on a ride gone crazy. “I would never say that about you, but look, I hardly think you can talk to me about it considering whose bed that really was. How did this all get so confused?”

  “When you practically tear a girl’s clothes off I don’t see how there’s much room for confusion.”

  “You weren’t exactly shy yourself!”

  She ripped the hat off her head, balling it up in her fist. Her hair stood up like a crown. “So what, you’re through with me, then?” She began smacking his chest with her hat, her voice sliding into a sneering parody of an office girl: “Unless I want to take your dictation, Mr. Short? How would you like your coffee, Mr. Short? I’ll type it up right away, Mr. Short!”

  He seized her wrist. “Stop! People are staring! Look, I didn’t mean for this to get so crazy, can’t we just cool off a minute?”

  “Cool off? Honestly.”

  She yanked her wrist so hard out of Milo’s hand that he stumbled forward. She took three limping, one-shoe strides away, then whirled back around and shouted through the night.

  “You’re a vine is what you are! You twisted into all my spaces, wrapped around all my branches! We are trapped together, Milo Short, we’ll never be rid of each other now, and I don’t mean as your office girl, typing your letters and doing your bidding so you can give me money in a way to ease your conscience. You and your ‘I have to marry a Jewish girl’ and yet you kept coming back.”

  Milo opened his mouth to retort: Vivian was the one who kept coming to him! Kept quitting jobs, following him around, so of course he felt responsible… But the panting Fury in front of him now wouldn’t hear these words. It would be all useless noise to her, now and forever.

  So he stood there, dumb and pathetic in the face of her wrath. He had a sense of shadows in the distance, shocked murmurs from a gawking few reaching his ears on the autumn breeze.

  Vivian stepped backward, awkwardly, lopsided, and then she was beyond the circle of lamppost light. The stage lights had by now been extinguished, and the darkness and dispersing performers swallowed her retreating figure.

  Milo bent down to pick up his coat, and in so doing, saw Gone with the Wind lying in the grass. He’d forgotten all about it. He’d been so tickled that morning, walking out of the Strand on Fourth Avenue with the book for Vivian and a fan magazine for Leah. Stupid, ignorant Milo, not knowing what he was about to step into.

  And Vivian, once again putting herself in trouble on his account, without him ever asking her to do so. Walking out of Harms, and that was a good job, too, with the ever-diligent and reserved Mrs. Smith typing away on her Corona while keeping one eye on Vivian, on all the girls. And now Vivian again gave up her security supposedly on his account, well, who asked her to do that? And why was it his fault? Sure they spent a night together, but she spent all kinds of nights together with Bell and why wasn’t this his problem, then?

  Seemed like he’d spent his last two years keeping tabs on this crazy dame, who was always dashing off someplace she shouldn’t be, and for that matter following him around from place to place like some kind of puppy. Well, someone else could chase her this damn time because Milo Short was good and tired of it.

  Milo found the Playbill, though someone had stomped on it and he had to brush the dirt away. He shoved it back in the book. He began to walk away when he stumbled on something: her shoe. He picked it up, snarling at the shoe as if it were to blame for the whole stupid mess.

  Someone else would have to take care of her, and if she’d thrown over Bell, well then she’d have to make her own way. Or better yet, go back home to that sister. Sure, that wouldn’t be fun for her, but she’d have som
eone to watch out for her, someone who cared. So many families he knew had been split up by emigration, by war, people dead with the flu. He’d seen the faces of the new Jewish immigrants who’d be sent to his father’s tailor shop for a decent set of American clothes at a cheap rate. They would have this look of lonely terror that seemed unique to them, having fled their homelands out of desperate necessity, having left behind all they knew, sometimes family, sometimes wives and children if they couldn’t afford to bring them, parents who wouldn’t leave the shtetl life, the only life they’d ever known.

  And here was Vivian, who’d done that to herself on purpose, thrust herself into a dirty, noisy city alone, and for what? Selling perfume? Being some man’s girl on the side? She didn’t leave home to marry a Jew songwriter, this much he knew.

  He clutched the shoe in one hand until its strange contours hurt his palm. If he had the power, he’d throw her onto a train home himself.

  He stomped up the metal steps of the elevated platform to head for home. By the time he stepped onto the train, his breathing had slowed and he felt mainly tired.

  The clattering rocking of the train seemed to soothe him. He leaned his head against the window and tried to remember the sister’s name. Edna. Elaine. Esther. Something with an E. How bad could the sister be, anyway?

  You think I should crawl back to Estelle, don’t you? I’d rather throw myself in the East River. Do you know I stood on the Brooklyn Bridge once and wondered if I could hike my dress up high enough to get over the rail?

  Milo gasped and snapped to alertness, standing up to get off the train at the very next stop, needing to turn around and head back the way he came. He drew worried and disgusted stares from the others on the train, as they eyed his incoherent mutterings, none of them knowing they were frantic prayers.

  New York, 1999

  In the window seat, I have both a view of the street outside, and Alex on a chair pulled up near the window. I tap a picture in the photo album on my lap.

  “I think this must be her,” I tell Alex, pointing at the dark-haired woman frowning behind Grampa Milo and his songwriting partner at the Stork Club. This was the same photo as was in that old biography. There must have been two copies, because I can’t imagine Grampa Milo would have shared his copy with a biographer. He was always so closed-mouthed with biographers, interviewers. He used to say it was because he was tired of the same questions all the time, and how his boring old life didn’t matter anyhow, just the work. I believed him, because why wouldn’t I? Same as I believed him that Grandma Bee was his one and only love. Everything I ever thought I knew is slipping through my fingers.

  Alex leans in. “Wow, she looks like Mom in old pictures. Or, Mom looks like her. I guess she would, wouldn’t she?” He’s pulled his hair back so that if you see him from the front he looks like he’s got an unfortunate caplike haircut, but if you look behind him there’s wavy tail between his shoulder blades.

  “You know, you can let your hair down. We have seen long hair a time or two in New York. No one’s going to care.”

  This last part isn’t true, really, because Naomi would wrinkle her nose and sniff as if checking for pot smoke. But it’s not like he can really hide it.

  He shrugs. “Nah. It would get in my way right now anyway. I’ve been thinking of cutting it. I spend way too much money on shampoo.”

  An odd, snorting giggle escapes me before I can snatch it back. So wrong to laugh now, here, of all places. But Grampa Milo would have laughed, too, if he’d have heard the joke. He’s sleeping now upstairs, has been all morning.

  We are waiting for the nurse to come take his blood, and I am so fluttery and shaky I am craving a smoke, something I haven’t experienced since I was trying to be cool back in college.

  We made the house call appointment when Uncle Paul had said he would be out of town, checking on a show in previews. Naomi was not yet due back from London. I’d weaseled out of Aunt Rebekah the fact that she had a lunch meeting for some charity board. So it seems we will be alone today, just long enough.

  The sonorous doorbell chimes and I gasp, fumbling the album. Alex catches it before it slides off my lap. He closes it reverently and hands it back to me, meeting my eyes. “Here goes nothing,” he says, and then gives my hand a pat, where I’m gripping the album far harder than I need to.

  As I disentangle from the window seat, I catch Esme’s eye. We’d had to enlist her in this subterfuge, about which I feel well and properly guilty. The family can get mad at me all they want, but they can’t fire me. This is not true for Esme.

  Alex and I follow Esme into the foyer. She opens the door with her “greeting” face on, but then I watch her warm brown skin drain pale at whatever she sees behind the guest.

  The nurse comes in, or I guess phlebotomist. He’s a thin, reedy man with sharp cheekbones and a close-cropped haircut, who introduces himself as Leon. I’m starting the introductions when I hear Esme exclaim, “Back so soon, Miss Naomi?”

  Naomi clomps in, dropping a carry-on bag on the floor. “Who the hell is this?” she says, gesturing to the phlebotomist and finger combing her hair at the same time, and turning her attention to Alex. “And this? What’s going on, is Grampa okay? Who are these people? Eleanor?”

  “I didn’t think you were supposed to come back yet.”

  “Yeah, well, here I am, and why aren’t you answering me?”

  “Let’s talk,” I tell her, and nod to Alex, who approaches Leon. I’m praying he will catch my drift, and get the blood test and get the guy out while I stall Naomi.

  She shoves the swinging door into the kitchen, and it bangs against the wall and back toward me such that it almost hits my nose.

  “Okay, what, El? Start talking.”

  “Why are you back?”

  “I forgot my daughter’s recital was this week until my assistant reminded me so I cut the trip short, but why does it matter when I’m back? Who are those people? Do I need to call the police to get these strangers thrown out of our house? Because I’m about five seconds from doing that.”

  “It’s research. For the book.”

  “What kind of research requires that one guy to have a big black case like a doctor bag, and why does some hippie slacker guy have anything to do with your book? So help me, Eleanor, you better give me answers that make sense.”

  “Or what, Naomi?”

  “Forget this.” Naomi makes to cross the kitchen, so I stand in her path. “Move out of the way.”

  “No, hear me out first, please.”

  “I’ve been trying to hear you out and you keep dodging. Something is going on with those people or you’d have just told me who they are the minute I came in the door. I will put your ass on the ground, so move.”

  “It’s a blood test.”

  At this Naomi stands back from me somewhat, but still in arm’s reach. “For what.”

  “There’s a possibility… a remote… we think…. I mean, there’s this person, it’s possible…”

  “Oh God, it’s a paternity test?”

  Naomi shoves past me while I’m still stammering, and I stumble back against the door. She’s improbably fast even in her business heels, and has gained the door to Grampa Milo’s room while I’m still on the first landing. I can hear her bellowing about stopping this farce.

  “Wait, Naomi! Listen to me!”

  “Get out!” she’s hollering. “Get out right now, or I’m calling the police.”

  I finally burst in to see Grampa Milo finish scribbling on a piece of paper on a clipboard, his left hand looking awkward and cramped. Leon continues with his preparation, not fazed in the slightest. He fishes out a little rubber tourniquet, and begins talking in a soothing, unruffled voice about what he’s going to do, though how Grampa can hear over Naomi’s bluster I’ve no idea.

  I’ve put myself between Naomi and the bed and finally distinguish the basic gist of her rant: that Grampa Milo has been tricked into this and can’t possibly understand what he’s signin
g and don’t you dare or she’ll call the police.

  I seize her by the arms and give her a brisk shake. Her face clears up from its indignation long enough to regard me with stunned, mute shock that I should lay my hands on her.

  “You don’t want this in the papers, do you? You want this call over the police scanner? On Page Six?”

  “Are you threatening me?” She shakes her arms away from me and scrunches up her face. She’s so confused that retiring little Ellie has physically grabbed her that it’s not an argument she’s making, it’s a genuine question. Her world has gone so crazy she honestly can’t understand it. It’s almost funny, and some part of me thinks I will laugh about this later, when I’ve finished with my own panic attack.

  “Of course not, I wouldn’t tip them off, but police reports and scanners are public. We were trying to be quiet about this until you came in here and lost your shit.”

  We both turn at a snapping noise: Grampa Milo snapping his fingers, as Leon the phlebotomist tapes a piece of gauze in the crook of his arm. Grampa’s glaring at Naomi, and shaking his head, for now every inch the patriarch. His turn to say, in the only way he can, “Don’t you dare.”

  “You people are all nuts.” She whirls on her heel and strides out. I follow her into the office across the hall. She assumes her more typical stance: legs wide, arms akimbo. Her color is high again, her shock burned away by her rage.

  “This is outrageous. It will not stand up in court for a moment, you realize this. He’s frail and a stroke victim who probably has no idea what he’s even signing, and what’s more you can’t be sure he understands you. He can barely even sign left-handed, it won’t look like a competent signature. I don’t know what you hope to prove but this is a joke. I’m calling Eli right now.”