Vivian In Red

by Kristina Riggle

  She snatches up the receiver, but I press the button to hang up her call.

  “How dare you?” She bats my hand away. “What the hell is wrong with you anyhow?”

  “Naomi, Grampa Milo wants to know. He agreed to this.”

  “He doesn’t know what the hell he’s agreeing to.” She tries to dial again, so I hang her up again. “Eleanor, I’ll just call our lawyer from another phone.”

  “So call from another phone, but listen to me, dammit.”

  She slams the phone down and crosses her arms. “Fine. Talk.”

  I explain about the existence of Vivian, and Alex and the birthdates and all the coincidences. I leave out anything that seems hallucinatory and say nothing about song lyrics, God forbid Naomi hear about all that.

  I finish up trying to appeal to a sense of charity. “So we just want to find out, just in case, just to set this poor lady’s mind at ease in Michigan. It’s a mitzvah.”

  She snorts. Naomi has a world-class derisive snort. “I cannot believe you would do this to him. Our grandfather is sick and probably dying, and you go in there and make him think, on his deathbed, that he fathered a child out of wedlock with some crazy lady, based on press clippings? Being in the same picture as him at the Stork Club? Jesus, Eleanor, were you born yesterday? This hippie kid is a fortune hunter, he just wants some easy money, or publicity. Have you figured that out? How he can go to the tabloids now?”

  “What do the tabloids care, anyway? Grampa’s not Tom Cruise.”

  “You were just talking to me about Page Six! God, you’re so naïve. I knew you shouldn’t have done this book. I’m calling Paul and telling him to cancel the contract. You’re not even working on the book, are you? Have you written a word? You’ve gotten all swept up in this stupid romantic theory, manipulated by this stranger, and in the meantime the book project that’s going to promote our amazing revival show is dead in the water. Once again, I’m right, but does anyone ever listen to me? And then the next thing I do is call Eli and tell him about this insane escapade so that we have a plan to quash any ludicrous claims that come out of this.”

  Naomi steps around the desk to get close to me, and she jabs her long nail toward my nose. “I thought you wanted to help the family, El. Well, thanks for helping us into legal fees and scandal and probably another stroke for our poor grandfather. Thanks for nothing.”

  Her voice cracks over “nothing,” and she flings herself down into one of the guest chairs on the other side of the desk. She puts her head in her hands and stays there while the clock downstairs gongs away.

  When she speaks again, her voice is crackly, like radio static. “I am trying so hard. Trying so hard to keep everything okay.”

  I settle into the opposite chair. I won’t try to take her hand, or pat her arm. I know better. “I know you are.” So am I, in my way, I’m tempted to argue, but she won’t listen, anyway. “Look, how’s this? We don’t tell anyone yet. You’re assuming the blood test will be damning. It might clear him, too. Let’s just wait it out. If it’s not him, then we can forget all about this and no one else has to be the wiser. No legal fees, no scandal. As for me, you can hate me as much as you want, either way.”

  “Okay, you got me with that last part.” Naomi sits up, rubs her face, and collapses backward into the chair. “Kid, will you go check on Grampa? I need to get myself together a minute.”

  By the time I get out into the hall, Naomi has curled forward again, her blown-straight hair swinging down past her face, her expression unreadable.

  New York, 1936

  It wasn’t much past dawn when Milo Short stepped heavily down off the streetcar in Times Square, on his way to the theater. Soon enough he’d be at the opening, then at parties, then swallowing boulders as he waited for the early notices to come in. Soon enough he’d be side-by-side with Allen for all of it.

  He just wanted to view the marquee in peace, and seeing as how he hadn’t slept all night for his pointless search for Vivian, the crack of dawn was as good a time as any. He’d been back and forth across the Brooklyn Bridge, had haunted the doorstep of her—Bell’s—apartment. He’d tried hotels, he even went back to the park in case she might return to search for her shoe.

  Now the newsboys were cutting open stacks of papers, and he was half expecting and all the way afraid to hear a shouted bulletin along the lines of “Read all about it: Dead girl fished from East River!”

  The High Hat opening Friday! John Garnett, Marianne West, George Lamb, Gigi Giselle.

  All of these fabulous names, and every one of them fake as the wooden sets on the stage inside. Garnett’s real last name escaped him, but he knew it was foreign sounding with a whole lot of blocky consonants. Marianne’s true last name was Wisocki. Gigi Giselle’s real name was Bertha Lambert and she was from Indiana. Mark Bell was Marco Rubellino, and Milo himself was supposed to have been Moshe Schwartz.

  Vivian Adair and Bernard Allen were some of the few real names he knew.

  Milo thought the stage door might be open early, so he wandered over that way. The night had turned cold and gusty during his search, and the morning was taking its time in warming up, so he jammed his hands deep into his pockets. Not like he could sleep, even being awake all night, because inside he was vibrating like a cymbal crash.

  Aw, nuts, he thought, a bum at the stage door entrance. Then he noticed the “bum” was in fact wearing one ladies’ shoe.

  He was at her side in a flash. “Vivian? Kid?”

  When she opened her eyes a slit and stared at him, blank, he was firstly glad she was not dead. That had been his thought when he realized it was her, prone on the ground: dead, and all his fault.

  She wasn’t dressed for the weather. He shrugged out of his coat and wrapped it around her. Her stockings were shredded up. “What did you do all night?”

  She looked at him like he was a mannequin.

  “Does it matter?” With his propping arm she sat up, but slumped forward, her legs out straight in front of her, stocking feet pointing vaguely outward. Broken was the word that drifted into his mind.

  “It matters to me.”

  “Ha.”

  “Were you out all night in the weather?”

  “Walked.”

  “Walked where? Home? I tried to look for you.”

  “Here.”

  “You walked all that way here?”

  A shadow fell over Milo’s shoulder, and he turned on his haunches to see a cop staring down his nose at them. “You need some assistance, sir?” He drew out the sir with practiced sarcasm.

  “Not at all, officer, she’s just had a bit too much, I’m about to take her home.”

  Any notion of calling for help drained away. If Vivian kept on like this in front of anybody official she’d end up in an asylum.

  “C’mere, let me take you home. You’re not staying at the apartment now, since you threw him over…”

  She laughed a hollow, dark chuckle. “I haven’t left him. Sure, I thought about it. Hoped to do it. But part of me knew, just knew, you wouldn’t come through for me. Mark is going to shine me on soon enough, anyway. There’s prettier girls, younger girls, more… pliable girls. Easygoing girls who never give a bit of trouble.”

  “Some girls are worth the trouble.”

  “And some are not.” She looked at Milo straight on for the first time since he’d found her. Her face softened. “Oh, Milo. You turned out to be a good egg in the end.”

  “What are you talking about, ‘end,’ what end? C’mon, stand up, I’ll get you to whatever home, I don’t care, just someplace off the streets here.”

  Vivian let herself be pulled to her feet, and walked along the sidewalk, though she seemed to always be pulling against him slightly.

  “Here, let’s get a cab so you don’t cut your feet.”

  The driver paid no mind to Vivian’s dishevelment, nor the fancy apartment house address. Milo overpaid because he didn’t have the right change on him, and maybe a little because he
felt vaguely guilty. Though what tipping a cabbie had to do with things, he hardly knew.

  Vivian was picking her away across the sidewalk, and Milo swooped her up into his arms. Her head rested on his shoulder. Her hair smelled like wind, dirt, and soot from the trains.

  He stood her gently on her feet on the apartment stoop. “So, where’s your key?”

  “I can’t believe I’m back here,” she said, staring at the heavy wood door. “I really thought I wouldn’t be.”

  Milo dared not repeat anything he said the night before, even if it was all true. It would only bring her low. Lower yet. Some truths you leave alone because all they do is hurt.

  Milo said quietly, in the soft voice he’d heard his mother use to Leah as they were growing up, when she’d be coughing and coughing, “Where’s your key, huh? Let’s get you inside.”

  A whining siren reached their ears, growing louder with proximity. Some poor bastard was Milo’s thought because whatever the siren was for, police or the fire department, it sure didn’t mean anything good for somebody.

  The siren seemed to energize Vivian. She straightened, her complexion brightened before Milo’s eyes.

  For a heartbeat, Milo didn’t understand what was happening. It wasn’t until Vivian was halfway down the stoop, his own coat sailing out behind her, that he had even an idea of what she planned.

  How was she so quick, and without shoes, too? She’d gotten to the sidewalk and gone several strides while Milo still had one foot on the steps. She was streaking down the concrete, arms pumping like an athlete. Two cars parked on the side had left a sizeable gap between bumpers and Milo saw her head turn that way, and she angled toward it. The siren grew impossibly louder.

  Milo was hardly an athlete but he ran harder anyway, muttering to God for speed, now, please…

  The siren pierced Milo’s ears and he threw himself forward, crushing Vivian beneath him to the pavement. The fire engine swerved unsteadily around them, and Milo thought he heard indistinct shouts of outrage from the firemen, but it was hard to know, because the loudest sound was his own blood rushing in his ears.

  He picked himself up off of her and rolled her onto her back to inspect for damage. Her face and upper chest above her bodice were scraped and red. The high color which had brightened her cheeks was draining away. Her eyes were staring flatly at the sky.

  “Why did you do that?” she asked listlessly.

  “Why did you?” He tried to lift her. They were still lying on the road, after all. She didn’t answer, and refused to budge. Annoyance and fear of traffic braided together for Milo. He was heaving her into a seated position when she let loose.

  A screech as loud as the fire truck shrilled in his ear. Apartment dwellers threw up their curtains all over the block to get a look, pigeons scattered, and Milo nearly dropped her.

  As suddenly as she started, she stopped, like someone yanked the needle off a record. This time she let Milo pick her up without resistance, and he decided to take her home.

  His mother answered the door. “Milo! Who is this? What has happened?”

  “She’s in a bad way. She needs people around her, and I didn’t know what else to do.”

  “Bring her to the sofa. I will make her some coffee.”

  Vivian allowed herself to be laid down like a doll. Milo cast a glance at the door, which his mother had locked behind them. Not that it would stop her if she were really determined, but if Vivian did try to run out, he’d at least have a couple seconds to catch up with her first.

  He joined his mother in the kitchen, where she was plugging in the percolator.

  His mother turned to him and fixed him with a narrowed, steely look. “This your girlfriend?”

  “No, Ma, I swear. She’s sorta…attached to me. I guess I probably gave her the wrong idea.”

  “I guess you probably did. What is it you plan to do with her?”

  “I don’t know, I just can’t leave her alone now.”

  “Why is she all scratched up?”

  “I had to tackle her to keep her from throwing herself in front of a speeding fire engine.”

  She clucked her tongue. “I knew a girl like this once. Very sad.”

  Milo didn’t ask for the story, not wanting to hear the tragic end.

  His mother went to the cupboards, looking for coffee mugs. “I will let her stay here until this evening, but you need to have her gone before your father gets home. I should not like to explain this to him. He will not believe she is not a girlfriend, and this he will not appreciate, Moshe.”

  “When does he get back? And where is he, anyhow?”

  “Seven o’clock. Meetings with the Jewish Relief Council. They are talking of Europe. Everyone talking Europe. Why do you fuss and worry about here, when our people suffer so? If only you knew. If only all of you knew.”

  “We know. Just not in the same way as you.”

  The percolator bubbled. “Does she like anything in it? We have only sugar just now.”

  “Just some sugar. I doubt she’ll drink it.” Milo silently added, I hope she doesn’t throw it against the wall. This limp wraith on the couch, and the streaking figure bent on single-minded destruction, neither of these Vivians did he understand.

  Milo took the coffee to her, and murmured her name. She looked at him with resignation, and turned to face the back of the couch. “I’ll leave it here,” he said, and rested the cup on the side table.

  Then he sat in an adjacent chair, watching her, turning his hat around and around in his hand, while he thought. What he really needed, Milo decided, was a girl. Another girl would know what to do.

  An hour later, Milo was wearing a path in the living room rug. Vivian had hardly moved, about as human and warm as a piece of furniture. Milo had finally drunk the lukewarm coffee rather than waste it, nearly performing a spit-take because his mother had made it so strong.

  Chana Schwartz had gone to the market to buy the night’s dinner, and other than the telephone ringing once (Max, asking after Leah, who was at the pictures with a neighbor) the apartment was so quiet that Milo could faintly hear conversations of people going by in the street.

  Somehow he kept ending up alone with this dame.

  The only time Vivian spoke was once. She turned over on the sofa, curled on her side like a child, to face Milo. “I could stay with you. We could write more songs? Help each other? I promise to be good. I know I’m not always good.”

  “You are good,” Milo answered, sitting across from her, where he’d been tapping out rhythms from the show on the arm of his chair. He made his voice hard, imitating his father. “But you can’t stay with me. It’s time you went home.”

  “You don’t want me.” This was part challenge, part question. Milo couldn’t bring himself to answer.

  Vivian raised herself on one elbow. “Then say so. Say you don’t want me, or I won’t believe you.”

  “C’mon, kid…”

  “Say it.”

  Milo made himself look at her straight on. “No. I don’t want you.”

  Vivian pulled back as if bitten, then melted gradually back down to a prone position, her eyes unfocused, staring at nothing.

  When there was a quiet knock at the door, Milo yanked it open and he could have kissed Mrs. Smith, if she’d have stood for such a display. He’d never have imagined the prim head secretary back at TB Harms would be coming to his aid now. He never even thought he’d see her again after that day Keenan canned him. He never even went back to visit, or bring her a pastrami sandwich like the old times. And yet here she was, answering his call, bringing her brisk efficiency to bear, no questions asked.

  “I’m not sure how much I can help, but I’ll try,” she said, stepping past Milo without waiting to be invited, crisp and secretarial as ever.

  She walked with erect, proper posture to the girl’s limp form, and sat carefully on the edge of the table. She reminded Milo of a tiny bird, perched the way she was. She reached out a slim hand with red nails and st
roked Vivian’s arm.

  “Vivian? It’s me. Beatrice.”

  Beatrice. Milo had never heard her first name during the time they worked together. She seemed to prefer the formality of “Mrs.” Or maybe that was just his assumption, since she always seemed as reserved and controlled as her hair knotted on the back of her head.

  Mrs. Smith turned to look over her shoulder at Milo. “Mr. Short, would you give us a minute?”

  “Sure, of course.”

  Milo scampered out of the apartment and down the steps, all too happy to let Mrs. Smith do whatever she would.

  He rested on the stoop and watched the Bronx parade by as he lit a cigarette. From his view he could see the Majestic Theatre, likely where Leah had gone. It was showing an Astaire picture, Follow the Fleet. Some songwriters had been heading out to Hollywood, and Allen had been pestering him about it, too, saying the money was better, what with theaters shutting down all up and down Broadway, turning into movie houses. “They still need music, Short,” Allen had implored, but Milo had shook his head quietly, concentrating instead on watching the final dress rehearsals for The High Hat.

  Milo had heard the old hands in the business telling gleeful old stories about the older shows, about pranks played on each other in the cast, about stage mishaps that must have been horrifying at the time but in the retelling, having all survived, became hilarious anecdotes, more so when greased by free-flowing booze. Milo would like to tell stories like that, but his two shows thus far both were all tangled up with Allen and Vivian, two wretches who’d taught him more about life than he ever wanted to know.

  He squinted down at his cigarette and wished he’d have been good with a needle after all, stitching away at the Schwartz and Sons tailor shop. Vivian had come to the city for excitement, so it would seem, but Milo didn’t think so much was wrong with boring. Max was doing just fine with his pretty little wife and a good job.

  Milo turned as the apartment building door opened gently, knowing right off it was Mrs. Smith.

  She lowered herself down next to Milo on the stoop, holding out her hand. Milo handed her the cigarette and she sucked in a long, unladylike drag. When she handed it back, a ring of red lipstick was imprinted on the end.