* * *
Chi Chi entered the William Morris Talent Agency office building on Sixth Avenue in New York City through the revolving door. She took the elevator up to the sixth floor, hoping that by the time the doors opened onto the pale green waiting area with the beige couch and walnut coffee table, she would have made her decision, or maybe her agent could make it for her.
The secretary ushered Chi Chi into Lee Bowman’s office, a small but tasteful space with a window. Glossy black-and-white photos of every act she represented made a bold Art Deco collage behind her. Chi Chi took a seat and removed her gloves.
“You look like Venus, Chi Chi. The touring didn’t wizen you a bit. You’re fresh as a poppy.”
“You look good too, Lee. Making the deals agrees with you.”
“It actually gets my blood pumping.” Lee slid an envelope across the desk. “Here’s the check for the sale of the equipment from your father’s studio. I did the best I could.”
Chi Chi opened the envelope. The check was made out to her for $1,273.44.
“I can’t believe it, Lee.”
“Not enough?”
“No, it’s plenty. I didn’t think you’d be able to get anything for it.”
“My guy sold it to a studio on Long Island. It took forever. But he came through. Sometimes I actually like the music business. Men can be decent.”
“This will really help my mom.”
“Now, about you,” Lee said. “Jimmy took your resignation hard, but he understood. He couldn’t just plug in another Italian singer from the rust belt to stand in for Tony and keep your duet thing going with substitutes.”
“I’m glad he understood.”
“I have something I think you’ll go for. I know how you hate the cold and the snow.”
“I hate it. So I guess I will love the humidity of Florida.”
“No, no humidity. There’s an orchestra that works the West Coast line. I hear they’re swell. She pays. Have you heard of her?” Lee showed Chi Chi the offer, headed “Vickie Fleming and the Forty Carats—All Girls—Sirens Swing!”
“All girls?”
“It’s not for everyone. Though there are some fine bands out there. Ethel Smith. The International Sweethearts of Rhythm. Good girls. Great music. ”
“Tell me about Vickie.”
“She’s a professor of music. Daughter of a librarian. Has that knowledge of music across all genres. She said you could write new material and perform it. Will let you keep a recording schedule too. She’s open. And she’s already booked through the new year. Look at this lineup of cities. And she’s adding in as she goes.”
San Francisco—Hotel Stanford
Portland—The Ashby
Seattle—The Corning
Los Angeles—The Hollywood Canteen
Carmel-by-the-Sea—The Stardust Club
San Diego—Little Millie’s on the Beach, Villa Marquis
Santa Barbara—The Corner Club
“I could take this gig, or I could take a few months off and help my sister with her baby that’s due before Christmas.”
“You know what I say about babies?” Lee leaned in. “They’re really wonderful when they’re thirty.”
“I’ve got my eye on a baby of my own, Lee.” Chi Chi pulled a newspaper clipping from her purse and gave it to Lee. “Can you come with me? It’ll take fifteen minutes of your time.”
Lee scanned the clipping. “Sure. These boys owe me a lunch hour.” She reached under her desk for her purse.
* * *
Chi Chi and Lee arrived at East Fifty-Fifth Street and Second Avenue on foot. A construction site fenced off at street level revealed a red-brick building, twenty stories high, nearing completion. A crane lifted bricks on a scaffold onto the roof of the building. The silver ropes of the pulleys swung against the blue sky like marionette strings. Stonemasons suspended on platforms installed the bricks onto the exterior walls of the upper floors. Construction workers poured the walkways on the ground level, raking wet concrete from the trough of a cement mixer into frames that formed the entrance.
“May I buy you lunch?” Chi Chi stopped at a hot-sweet-potato cart on the corner. The earthy aroma of maple and wood fire was enticing. The vendor loaded strips of kindling from the open mesh carrier on the side of the cart into the square aluminum oven as the smokestack blew gray puffs into the air. He wrapped two potatoes from the warming pan for Chi Chi. She handed one to Lee, before paying the vendor thirty cents.
“So, this is the building.” Lee squinted at the work in progress.
“I want to buy a piece of real estate.”
“Why buy when you can rent? It’s cheaper.”
“I want to own. And I want you to negotiate the deal for me.”
“Be your straw man?”
“Yep. I have a funny idea about this place. An instinct,” Chi Chi explained. “I’m on the road, and I’ve met a lot of musicians who need a place to stay here in the city when they come through. If I have an apartment, I can offer it as a short-term rental, and eventually, it will pay for itself. When the time comes, if I choose to, I can use it too. Or, even better, sell it at a profit.”
Lee looked over the clipping of the sales offering on the new building. The Melody on East Fifty-Fifth Street and Second Avenue promised to be an apartment residence like none other, according to the offer: an oasis in the city with modern appliances, rooftop garden, and laundry service. The units were being sold in advance of the completion of construction.
“I believe in signs. The Melody.” Chi Chi looked up at the building, drinking in the potential of the place.
“Do you want the efficiency or the one-bedroom?”
“I want the classic six.”
“You aim high. Though you are making bank on Mama’s Rolling Pin,” Lee reasoned. “It’s being sung at every wedding on the East Coast.”
“At least the ones held in garages.” Chi Chi laughed.
“I don’t think those royalties are going to stop anytime soon,” Lee said. “Okay, I’ll go and see what I can do.”
“No higher than fifteen hundred dollars,” Chi Chi said. “The efficiency is three fifty. The one bedroom is five fifty. The math doesn’t make sense if they go for twenty-five hundred for the classic six.” Lee watched Chi Chi take out a pencil and scratch out figures in a small notebook with a pencil. Lee had never met a musician who was as savvy in business as she was at art until she met Chi Chi.
“Make sure you go for a corner on the front of the building,” Chi Chi said. “That way, I get east/west sun.”
“You’ve done your homework, I’ll say that.”
“I trust my gut, Lee. There are days when I think it’s all I’ve got.”
* * *
California had an orange sun, wide eggshell beaches, a foamy, wild blue ocean with a silver surf, towering palm trees, and, to Chi Chi’s delight, buttery avocadoes, lemon trees, sweet strawberries, and fat purple grapes for the picking. She hiked hills that were green and lush in November while her sisters were back east shoveling snow. Spikes of birds-of-paradise and thick bougainvillea vines drenched with hot pink and purple blossoms flourished among thickets of beach roses in winter. Technicolor wasn’t an explosion of color confined to the motion-picture screens in Hollywood, it could also be found in every garden on the West Coast.
The only problem with California, as far as Chi Chi could tell, was that she occasionally forgot what month it was because, in the perennial warmth, it always felt like June. She was guilty about taking a job in such plush surroundings, when most of the men she knew were fighting in the war, but it made her feel better when she saw how many bond drives the band would sponsor on their tour. Everyone was doing their bit.
The Saint Rita Boardinghouse in Ojai, California, was base camp for the all-girl orchestra, and enough of a convent that it gave some of the ladies of Vickie Fleming and the Forty Carats the heebie-jeebies. The complex was isolated, but that was beneficial. Chi Chi could write and rehea
rse with no distractions. She began the most creative period of her life in California composing music, writing lyrics, and testing her leadership skills as a musical director for the all-female orchestra.
Expectations were low when it came to accommodations for the traveling band. The girls were used to cheap motels, renting rooms that smelled like canned corn with mattresses that were so lumpy they needed to go a few rounds with Gene Tunney before they were suitable for slumber. But the convent accommodations were safe and clean. Room and board included the option of morning prayers and vespers, which most of the ladies politely declined. It turned out that Miss Fleming wasn’t interested in saving souls either; she wanted to save money, and the nuns offered the cheapest accommodations around—as she put it, the best deal, “for a song.”
The Forty Carats weren’t exactly forty instruments strong as advertised. That number included everyone in the band: musicians, singers, dancers, and even the bus driver. When Chi Chi signed her contract, she found a letter in her welcome packet:
Rules of the All Girl Traveling Band
If you dated him, I won’t.
If you married him, I won’t.
If two girls in the band like the same fella, flip a coin.
Chi Chi took one look at the rules and turned them into an anthem that the ladies performed as the finale in the first show under Chi Chi’s direction. She added one line to the rules before setting them to music:
And if any fella hurts a sister, he’s gonna boin (burn).
* * *
A week after she’d been in Ojai, Chi Chi picked up her mail in the lobby, including a letter and a package from home. She crossed her fingers there would be a jar of her mother’s homemade tomato sauce in the box. Before she opened it, she tore into a letter, from “T. Arma.”
November 1, 1942
Dear Cheech,
You would not believe all this. It is not what I imagined. I pray a lot, which will please you. I have been thinking a lot. There’s nothing but ocean out here. I do a lot of thinking.
Love, Saverio
P.S. Are you pen pals with that tall drink of water out of Newark?
November 5, 1942
Dear Saverio,
Your letters don’t say much, so I read between the lines. You’re praying, so maybe that takes up all your time and leaves very little for writing. That’s fine. I’ve never been in the US Navy so I have no idea what you are enduring, and it must be very difficult. I read the papers and go to the library when I can; not as often as I like. Right now I’m at a convent rehearsing with an all-girl orchestra. The conductor is a character. Her name is Vickie Fleming. She has red hair and she could be forty or eighty. I can’t tell. She keeps her youthful glow by washing her face with a pumice stone. That’s right. A rock. It peels off the top layer of the skin, revealing, I don’t know, skin that is so translucent, the texture of the skin on her face looks like the underside of a frog. I don’t believe looking glowy and youthful is worth it, though she says that when I am her age, I’ll rub anything on my face to erase the years. But a rock? Come on, sister! That’s something else she says all the time. Sister this and Sister that, and we’re in a convent. She makes us so crazy, a few of us are actually considering taking the veil.
Miss you. Love, Cheech
P.S. Jim LaMarca is a good fella, and almost as good a dancer as you.
November 12, 1942
Dear Cheech,
I read your last letter to the boys, who say it’s better than a Hope and Crosby picture. That’s how hard they laughed. Send more funny stories. We need them.
Love, Saverio
P.S. The P.S. made me sick.
November 17, 1942 (after the show)
Dear Saverio,
Your soul searching and deep thoughts as you serve Uncle Sam are astonishing. Hope and Crosby? At least tell the boys how much I resemble Dorothy Lamour. Anyhow, here’s another one. Vickie booked us in a club in San Diego. We got there and set up and rehearsed. The joint was sold out. We arrived to play and the owner was about to let in the patrons and said, “Ladies, off with your clothes.” June said, “Whatever do you mean, sir?” And he said, “You’re the all-girl revue I booked, aren’t you?” June said, “Yes,” and he said, “Well, then, off with the costumes.” And June said, “I’ll call the cops.” And he said, “I’ll show him the paperwork and he’ll put you in the slammer for breach of contract.” Well, there was a switcheroo. We were supposed to be at a club in San Obispo, I think that’s how you spell it, and the other group went there—well, the California State Kiwanis Club got an eyeful and they didn’t get to hear my new song. Inspired by you, old friend. By the way. I don’t think they missed a note of my song. The alternative was much more satisfying evidently.
Love, Cheech
P.S. Whenever you’re sick, lie down with a cool compress.
November 22, 1942
Dear Cheech,
Send the song.
Love, Saverio
P.S. If I do that, the guys on this tub will pound me like cheap hamburger.
* * *
Chi Chi stood at the console of Maccio Recording Studios in Santa Monica with her arms folded. She looked critically down at the chart she had written, erasing a phrase of the song, adding a rest into the bridge. Through the glass window, Sheila, Annie, Christine, and Deborah slipped headphones over their ears and leaned into the microphone to test the sound levels.
“You going in?” the engineer asked.
“Yep. We’ll take it from the top again.”
Chi Chi joined the girls in the sound booth and took a seat at the piano.
Everything about this particular day in the studio reminded her of her father. She could not shake her feelings of sadness. It was like that: sometimes waves of grief would swallow her when she least expected it. Usually, she hovered over the blues as if observing herself floating over old memories, but on days she needed her father’s counsel, she was reminded how much she missed him.
“Here we go, girls. Let’s nail this chorus.” Chi Chi put on her headset, adjusted her microphone, and played the tune on the piano. The quartet sang in a velvety four-part harmony:
Dream boy, Dream
Dream boy, Dream
She’s waiting on the shore, boy
Dream boy, Dream.
The women bowed their heads to listen as the engineer played the song back. Christine, the tall brunette, looked at the floor and tried not to cry. Deborah chewed a fingernail trying to distract herself, while Annie fished her handkerchief out of her purse.
“You okay?” Sheila asked. “Because I’m a first-class mess.” She wiped her tears on her sleeve. “Cripes almighty. I hate ballads.”
Christine had a brother fighting in Burma, Deborah’s husband was in Italy, Sheila’s father was on a sub, while Annie’s boyfriend was in training in Georgia. The song had too much meaning for them.
“There’s a glitch after the first phrase.” Chi Chi rubbed her eyes. “Let’s fix it.”
* * *
Tony was working in the brake room on the submarine, adjusting levels of safety bolts. He swung his wrench around the bolts, locking them into place. The motion reminded him of his time on the line at the River Rouge plant.
“You got a letter, Arma.”
“Thanks.” Tony took the package. He sat down and opened it.
Happy Thanksgiving
November 26, 1942
Dear Saverio,
I hope they have a turntable on that tub. Yours in FDR,
Love, Cheech
Tony made his way through the caverns of the submarine, holding the 78 record with care. He climbed a short ladder into the teletype room, using his free hand. Barney Gilley, a private out of Big Stone Gap, Virginia, was sending out code. Tony waited.
“You think you can play this for me, Barn?” Tony asked.
“Don’t see why not.”
Barney flipped a turntable down from a shelf. He handed the headphones to Tony, who slipped them on
.
Barney carefully placed the 78 onto the turntable. He dropped the needle.
Tony closed his eyes and listened.
From the look on Tony’s face, Barney wanted to hear the song, too. He plugged in his earpiece and listened along.
Nothing but ocean/Thoughts of you
Nothing but ocean/Brother I’m blue
I long for her eyes and lips and the scent of her hair
But all we got is this tub and cold sea air
Dream boy, Dream
Dream boy, Dream
She’s waiting on the shore, boy
Dream boy, Dream.
Nothing to eat/Nothing to say
Nothing but the radio/Dance the night away
I write him a letter to show him I care
So far away on that tub in the cold sea air
Dream boy, Dream
Dream boy, Dream
She’s waiting on the shore, boy
Dream boy, Dream.
Tony lifted one side of the headset. “Again?”
“Yes sir.” Barney dropped the needle. “That there is a fine tune.”
Tony and Barney closed their eyes and listened to the song again.
* * *
December 5, 1942
Dear Cheech,
The song is perfect. Made me want to sing again. I’m in San Diego Christmas week. Can you come and see me? That’s not a request. An order.
Love, Saverio
December 12, 1942
Dear Saverio,
The number at the hotel where we’re staying is SAN-7866. It’s the Villa Marquis. Yes, would love to see you, old friend.
Love, Cheech
P.S. You up to doing some crooning? A few of the girls and I are doing a gig at the Hollywood Canteen. We can do the old stuff. The boys would love it. And so would the girls.
Tony opened Chi Chi’s letter in his bunk. He read it once, folded and placed it back in the envelope, and set it aside. He put his hands behind his head and stared up at the gray metal ceiling, a shell of tin embroidered with a row of nailheads.
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