Tony was going to put up a fight, but he was exhausted. He followed Chi Chi down the hall to the master bedroom, sat on the edge of the bed, and untied his shoes. Chi Chi knelt and took over. She removed his shoes and socks, unbuttoned his shirt and slid it off his arms, and unfastened his belt. As he lay back on the bed, she removed his trousers.
Chi Chi shifted the bedspread as Tony climbed under the covers. He sank into the soft warmth of the bed. He had missed the silky sheets and soft pillows, the scent of vanilla and roses and his wife, but he wasn’t about to admit it. His anger was deep. The walls around him had grown tall and impenetrable, layers of vines on an ancient palazzo overgrown by neglect and anchored by time.
“Do you need anything?” she asked as she tucked the blanket around him.
“Nice,” he said. Soon her husband was sleeping. This was not the Christmas reunion she had planned. Tony could hold a grudge, and nothing, it seemed, could end it, not even his babies, not even Christmas.
* * *
Tony stood in the foyer of 10C of the Melody and let out a low, appreciative whistle.
“This is what you did with the royalties for Dream?”
“And the addition in Sea Isle.”
“That much?” he asked as he walked through the apartment. “This is sensational, Cheech.”
“I figured we’d always have it. We have business here.”
“It’s smart. So smart.” Tony opened cabinets and looked under the sink in the kitchen. “Fine craftsmanship.”
“We used the best materials. I don’t want to do this again.”
“It doesn’t look like you’ll have to, hon.”
Chi Chi grinned. Tony had not called her an endearment in the weeks he had been home. Chi Chi let him have his black mood. Slowly, she was breaking through, making progress by not pushing him. “This is all about comfort. You do a show at a nightclub, and you don’t have to take a train home. You just come to the apartment and relax.”
Tony sat down in the living room and lit a cigarette. “You doing any writing here?”
Chi Chi moved an ashtray near him. “I haven’t yet.”
“You got the setup. The piano. Looks like you have a desk there.”
“I had that table made from Dad’s console in the old garage.”
“No kidding.”
“Yep. I hope it has some magic in it.”
“You blocked?” Tony asked.
“I think I’m just exhausted.” She looked at her hands. “That’s the first time you’ve asked me anything about myself since you got home. Two words: ‘You blocked.’ ”
“That’s not true.”
“Okay, Sav.”
“You don’t believe me.”
“I don’t recall you asking about me.”
“I’m trying to get back into things. You look good. You figured everything out. The babies are fine. What do you need me for? Compliments?”
Chi Chi tried to hold her temper. “I need you to be my partner.”
“Oh. Well, a partner partners. Am I right about that? If you want a man who just nods and agrees with you, that’s not me. But that’s the way you treat me. You make all the decisions and you expect me to applaud like that toy monkey the girls have, the one that clangs the cymbals and clacks his teeth when you tap his head.”
“I tried to make things nice because I knew you had been through so much in the Navy. I didn’t do these things to exclude you. I did all these things to make your life easier.”
“You could’ve written to me about the apartment.”
Chi Chi thought about it. She owned the copyright to the song, so it was her money. But they were married, and she knew that all the money she earned was in fact their money now. He had turned over all his accounts to her. There were no secrets on his side, so why had she kept this one from him? She had not told him about the apartment purchase because she did not think she had to ask his permission.
Instead of the truth, she said, “I wanted to surprise you. I made the wrong choice. I really am trying to make you happy. I’m sorry.”
Low clouds covered Manhattan like a dingy flannel canopy on the blustery January morning. Chi Chi looked out the windows from the sofa as her husband put out his cigarette. He got up from his chair and sat next to her on the couch. “I’ve never been married.”
“Me either.”
“Do you think you can tell me things now that I’m home? Not everything. Just the big things.”
“I didn’t do all of this to upset you. I want you to be proud of me.”
“I’m always proud of you. You’re a good mother, Cheech.”
“But a lousy wife?”
“I wouldn’t say that. I’ve only had one, and she’s been all right.”
“You’re not going to trade her in?”
“Why would I do that?” Tony put his arms around her and pulled her close. Tony kissed Chi Chi, and soon their problems fell away, or seemed to, as they forgot about them long enough to remember what they meant to one another. He lifted his wife off the sofa, carried her to their bedroom, and placed her gently on their bed. She loosened his tie as he undid the buttons down the back of her dress.
“I like this room, Cheech.”
“I was worried about the color,” she said as she kissed him. “Too girly?”
“Nah. It’s like being inside a seashell.”
She pulled him onto the white velvet coverlet. “I never thought of that.”
“It’s always about the ocean with you,” Tony said as streaks of pink sun glimmered through the haze. “Even when you don’t think it is.”
* * *
Lee Bowman pushed through the posh glass doors that led to the reception area of the William Morris Agency and greeted Tony with a hug. “You look good, soldier.”
“That’s all behind me. Time to get me back on the boards.”
Tony followed Lee to the conference room. A team of agents stood when Tony entered. He shook the hands of seven men, all dressed in navy blue wool suits, white dress shirts with French cuffs, and black silk ties. “Was there a sale at Hiram’s on East Fifth Street?”
“Why do you ask?” said the eldest agent.
“You’re all wearing the same suit. I’ve seen enough uniforms in my lifetime.”
The agent cracked a slight smile. “We’ll work on that.”
“I’m Henry Reisch,” the youngest of the men said, “and I head your talent team here at the agency.” Henry was polished, and looked as though he had just graduated from college. He had a wide smile and impish brown eyes.
“You head my team? I didn’t know I had a team.”
“You do now, and we hope you’ll be pleased with the plan we’ve come up with on your behalf. Your primary agent is Miss Bowman, that doesn’t change. But we’ve got ideas for you.”
Lee nodded. “We feel that we can extend the borders of your talent. You’re a marvelous singer who has extensive touring chops, but we’d like to see you take it up a notch and do an extended tour through South America, parts of Europe, and major US cities. We’d like this tour to wind up in Hollywood, because we think you have a future in the movies.”
“You do?” Tony was surprised.
“Absolutely, sir. The movie musical is the profit center of the major studios these days. They need singers with chart hits. They need you,” Henry assured him.
“And you’re photogenic,” Lee added.
“How long a tour are we looking at?” Tony asked.
“We believe this tour could take, if we do it properly, three years.”
Tony sat back in the chair.
“It’s daunting to contemplate, but here’s what we know,” Henry said. “Record sales are fed by personal appearances. If we shore up your fan base in Argentina, Peru, Venezuela, all of South America—book you in the big rooms of the posh hotels—and we arrange a record deal in Spanish, you are suddenly in the top five percent of international sales with the big boys. South America will fuel sales in Europe. An
d so it will go. When you come back home, we get you cast in a movie, and that fan base supports the movie, and an entire new avenue of potential opens up for you.”
Tony lit a cigarette. “What’s the purse like on these gigs?”
“We get you top dollar, Tony. Expenses paid. First-class accommodations. The works. A Billboard ranking goes a long way in foreign territories. And the deeper into the calendar we can book you, the longer your commitment, the better the tour. And the more you make.”
“I like this.”
Henry glanced at Lee.
“The team was concerned you might want the option of staying in New York.”
“New York isn’t going anywhere,” Tony said. “I can always come home. Book the tour, Henry.”
Lee was surprised. Tony sat back and lit a cigarette. Making his own decision without consulting Chi Chi evened the score between them, but he was not thinking about that; he was elated to be wanted on a new continent.
* * *
Chi Chi sat on the steps of the back porch in Sea Isle sorting through a pouch of mail that had arrived from William Morris. Tony’s South American tour had come together quickly, and by March he was already on the road.
She flipped through a clip file of reviews from the tour. The articles were written in Spanish, but the photographs needed no byline. Tony, in a bespoke tuxedo, holding a glass of prosecco in one hand and a cigarette in the other, stood on an Art Deco stage set surrounded by gorgeous showgirls, with marabou plumes on their heads and less below the neck. The costumes were downright scanty.
The phone rang, and Chi Chi went into the kitchen to answer it.
“Thanks for the clippings, Lee. I especially appreciate the ones with Tony and the show ponies.”
“Are you talking about Rio? Oh, it’s Carnevale or some such thing. You have to ignore it.”
“I don’t think my husband can.”
“Don’t worry about him. Where’s he going to find a girl as marvelous as you?”
“Evidently he has his pick on the stage of the Candelora in São Paolo.”
“Let’s get your mind off all of that, shall we?” Lee coaxed her.
“I’d like that. What do you got?”
“There’s a lovely new young singer named Diahann Carroll who is looking for a ballad. She wants a real heartbreaker for her run at the Latin Quarter. She wants to record it, too. Has a spot for it on her debut album.”
“You called the right girl.”
“I always do.”
“Let me see what I can whip up. And I promise not to mention my three-year-old twins who got into Mommy’s cold cream and fingerpainted the living room walls.”
“Save that for the novelty number.”
“Already have the title. Mommy’s Nervous Condition Made Her Commence Drinkin’.” Chi Chi hung up the phone. The twins were napping, and her mother had gone to the store, so she had time to write.
Tony had been on the road on and off for almost three years since the war. His life had resumed at full throttle, but hers bore little resemblance to what came before she married. This is precisely what unnerved her. Everything had changed for her, from her sleep patterns, to where she lived, to the size of her waist. The prevalent attitude was that she should be grateful to be Tony’s wife and the mother to his children. Day by day, little by little, she was losing the woman she was before she met Tony Arma.
Chi Chi reached up behind the spice rack and retrieved her notebook and pen. She opened it and flipped through neatly printed lyrics from four years earlier. She sighed, mourning the loss of her fine penmanship. These days even her handwriting had been sacrificed, once she became a homemaker.
She wrote:
Love you but I’m alone
Love you kids are grown
Who are we when the house is empty
Who am I when my heart is empty
If you stay, please do
If you go, I haven’t been a fool
It’s never easy, so Mama said
It’s sorrow, pain, and struggle
It’s there in all the books I read
But if you stay, please do
If you go, you’re a fool
* * *
Chi Chi practically broke into a run as she jumped out of the cab at Fifth Avenue and Eighth Street. She was late. Rosie and Sunny had a fifth birthday party to attend in Sea Isle with their cousin Nancy. Barbara was late picking them up which made Chi Chi late for the train into the city.
Chi Chi was also cross because she had hoped to get her hair done that morning, but she had run out of time. When didn’t she these days? So she set her hair herself, but in a rush, she put it up wet. It was humid outside and her thick curls hadn’t dried properly. She wanted to look good for Tony. She gave up and pulled it back into a ponytail.
Chi Chi slipped into the Decca Recording Studio on East Eighth Street in Greenwich Village. She saw Tony through the glass partition, singing Gravy, Gravy, Gravy, a new song she had written for him.
The jazz combo that accompanied him were swinging. She put her head down and listened as the musicians played the chorus. The engineer called for Tony to sing it again all the way through. Tony turned around when the song was done and saw Chi Chi in the control room.
He motioned for her to join him inside and kissed her on the cheek. “What do you think?”
“I think you can juice up that chorus. Hello, boys,” she greeted the musicians. “How about this: when you get to the first trio of Gravy, Gravy, Gravy, Tony sings it solo, on the reprise, the band joins in, harmonize if you can find it. If you can’t, don’t harmonize—just a high-energy, fun feel to the song.”
Tony looked at the band. “Let’s try it.”
Chi Chi took her place in the control room.
“You know your stuff, sis,” the engineer said, stroking his measly goatee.
“I should. I wrote it.”
Tony sang the song through. When they got to the chorus, they followed Chi Chi’s prompt. Chi Chi bowed her head once more and listened. “That works.”
“You sit in with me anytime,” the engineer said. “You got any other ideas?”
“You need the wail of the sax in this song. That clarinet in there isn’t going to cut it. It’s getting lost.”
“Vito plays the sax, too.”
“Tell him to take it out of the case and blow.”
Chi Chi hit the button on the console to talk to her husband inside. “Tony, this song needs a couple of layers. We’re going to take out the clarinet and put in the sax. I want you and the boys to give it that street corner feeling again, but this time, Tony, you hold Gravy at the bridge, as long and high as you can. Mimic the sax and let it come under you as you sing and rip it. Got it?”
“I got it.” Tony put out his cigarette.
“Let’s take it from the top.” Chi Chi folded her arms across her chest and bowed her head to listen.
Tony watched his wife through the glass. This was exactly why he needed her in his life: when it came to his work, she never settled for less than perfection.
* * *
Chi Chi leaned back and put her feet on Lee Bowman’s desk to make her laugh. “This is what top-ten Billboard songwriters do—we move in when we make the gravy. Can you believe it? Another hit.”
“I’ve got the follow-up,” Lee said. “Babies, Babies, Babies.”
“Not a bad idea.”
“Tony should be here any minute.” Lee checked the clock. “You give him the news.”
“He loves to hear it from you. It sounds more official.”
“What do you have today? Make him take you out for a nice lunch.”
“We have an appointment. At Samson’s.”
“Oh, that. Get that done.”
“That’s why I’m here.”
Lee’s intercom buzzed. “Mr. Arma is in the lobby.”
“I’ll see you later.” Chi Chi grabbed her purse, pulled on her gloves, and took the stairs to the lobby.
T
ony was pacing when she emerged from the door. “Let’s go, hon.” He grabbed Chi Chi’s hand as he hailed a cab. “Are we late?”
“We’re just fine. Tony? Do you ever notice since we had the girls, we are never on time?”
“Yeah, I noticed.”
“Why is that?”
“I don’t know. More to do?”
“Or maybe we don’t want to go.”
“Could be.” Tony sounded preoccupied.
“You okay?”
“I’m not sure about this.”
“So we cancel.”
“Nah. I can’t. I gotta do it. Henry says it’s imperative.”
Chi Chi and Tony got out of the cab at 537 Fifth Avenue, whose entrance was recessed between the grand entrances of two larger stores.
“Hard to find,” Tony said as he followed Chi Chi inside.
“Discreet,” Chi Chi commented as they got into the elevator. “Third floor.”
Tony pressed the button.
When they got off the elevator, they stepped onto a polished terrazzo floor. A stately walnut door in front of them bore a small brass plaque: “Samson’s of Fifth Avenue.” Inside the suite, a receptionist greeted them in the waiting area, decorated in somber tones of charcoal gray, brown, and mauve.
“This reminds me of the bank where we got our mortgage,” Chi Chi whispered.
After a short wait the receptionist called them to wait in a private room. Tony and Chi Chi took their seats at a polished cherrywood conference table and matching chairs. Two large books were set on the table. Paintings depicting hunting scenes in colonial Virginia hung on the paneled walls.
An older man with short white hair and a mustache, wearing a bow tie and a doctor’s jacket, joined them. “I’m Sy Warmflash, and I’m your hair consultant. How can I be of service?”
“It’s pretty simple, Sy,” Tony said. “I’m thinning out, and I need a piece.”
Sy stood. “Do you mind if I take a look?”
“By all means.”
Warmflash looked closely at Tony’s head and scalp, examining the balding patterns, the thinning and premature grays. He stood back to get a sense of the proportion of his head to his body. He pulled out several index cards and made some notes on them. He sat down and faced his client.
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