I saw him off at Pennsylvania Station, and why not? No one would think twice about me being acquainted with a player. Mark Roth, Rex’s boss, came over to us. “Whad’ya do, Kramer, try to catch a fastball?”
I raised my hand to my eye. “Not exactly.”
He laughed. “Had a few too many and hit the deck, eh? Haven’t you heard there’s a prohibition against alcohol?” I introduced King. “Right, you’re that new recruit.” He checked his clipboard, handed King a ticket, nodded at the satchel in his hand. “That all you’ve got?”
King lifted the battered leather bag we’d retrieved from a locker at the bus station. “Change of clothes and my glove, what else do I need?” He was wearing his khaki trousers with a shirt I’d rinsed out for him, a fresh collar I’d given him, and one of my linen jackets (on me it was fashionably loose; on him the fabric strained at the seams, but he didn’t have anything else suitable for New Orleans). His uniform was stuffed into the satchel, buttons and all.
Roth cuffed him on the arm. “A man after my own heart. The Colonel needs a stateroom just for his wardrobe, isn’t that right, Kramer?” We laughed at his joke, but he had nothing to complain about. Whenever the Colonel traveled to New Orleans, he had his private car attached to the Crescent Limited, and it was Mr. Nakamura, not Mark Roth, who managed his luggage.
“Give my regards to Rex when you see him.”
“I’ll do that, Kramer. Say, here comes Waite Hoyt, finally.”
While everyone’s attention was focused on the Yankees’ star pitcher, I turned to King and took his hand. “Good luck.”
He kept my hand in his for a long time. “Say, Albert, if I make the team, think you could get me an apartment in that brownstone of yours?”
My mind started to whirr. The poet in the attic had been talking about going out to Hollywood to try his hand at the movies. Maybe I could persuade my neighbor on the second floor to take his vacant apartment? I still had that hammer hidden away in a drawer somewhere. I imagined taking it out and prying open that secret door between my apartment and the next, pictured King walking through it. But no. That passage had belonged to Felix. I couldn’t open it for some other man. “I’ve been thinking of moving, actually.”
King lifted his eyebrows. “Really? Well, let me know if you want a roommate.”
The conductor whistled all aboard. King finally let go of my hand. “Hopefully I’ll be back in April for opening day.” He pursed his lips a tiny bit to let me know he’d have kissed me if he could, then jumped up as a hiss of steam jolted the train forward. I forced myself to walk away before he could lean out a window to wave. I didn’t trust myself not to chase after the train as it pulled out of the station.
I considered the taxi stand on Eighth Avenue but decided to walk up to the Olde Playhouse instead. I hardly felt the sidewalk beneath my feet as I headed uptown, preoccupied as I was with half-formed plans and speculations. It would do me good to move, I thought. I’d stayed put at the brownstone in the vague hope that Felix might one day return, but I’d known for a long time now that such a day would never come. An apartment in a modern building, with two bedrooms and a real kitchen, that I could furnish as I liked—the idea was so appealing I wondered why I hadn’t done it sooner. A couple of bachelors sharing an address wouldn’t raise any suspicion, and what could be more natural than the Colonel’s secretary splitting the rent with a player on the Yankees’ payroll?
At the Playhouse, I found Helen huddled in the office with Miss Johnson, who was helping her figure out the financial implications of their disastrous opening night. I placed my hands on Helen’s shoulders, the beginning of a comforting embrace, but she shrugged me off. It was Miss Johnson who addressed me. “My goodness, Mr. Kramer, you look worse than I thought. Miss Winthrope said you’d had a fall.”
So that’s what she was telling people. “Yes, well, you can see why I missed the performance. I read the reviews this morning, though. I’m so sorry, Helen.”
“It might not be as bleak as it seems.” Miss Johnson pressed a key on the adding machine, which spewed out a roll of paper. She tore it off and pointed to the results. “Don’t forget, Mr. Kramer, the New York Times isn’t the only newspaper in the city. The Amsterdam News had a very favorable review. I was telling Miss Winthrope that the flight of white theatergoers might well be made up by ticket sales to Harlemites.”
“Not only that.” Richard Martin appeared in the office doorway, crowding me farther into the small space. “I just got word O’Neill himself will be attending tonight, in support of Gilpin.”
“Really?” Helen looked up then, her eyes bloodshot from lack of sleep and crying. “Do you really think things might turn around?”
“Anything’s possible, Helen.” Richard patted her arm. “I better stay by the telephone, just in case.”
“And I’ll be going home now, Miss Winthrope.” Bernice Johnson covered the adding machine and smoothed her skirt. “My parents are expecting me and Clarence for Sunday dinner.”
Left alone in the office with Helen, I knelt at her feet and spun her chair to face me. “I’m really so sorry, Helen. Whatever you need, I’m here now.”
The way she looked at me—like I was someone from her past whose name she couldn’t quite remember—curdled my stomach. “I needed you last night.”
I opened my mouth to explain, again, how unexpected King’s appearance had been, but she moved her eyes away from my face to a spot on the wall. I didn’t need to be a mind reader to know what she was thinking. She’d accepted me, loved me, given me her friendship and her heart. In return, she didn’t expect romance or marriage. My presence, my support, my open arms—these were all she asked of me and I had failed her. What did normal men do when they made their women cry? Bouquets of roses, boxes of chocolate, presents from Tiffany’s? If that’s what it took to get Helen to smile at me again I’d buy them all. But those offerings would feel false coming from me. The gifts were less the point than the lovemaking that followed. A normal man could placate his woman’s hurt feelings with passion. My passion had been spent on King. If only I could explain to Helen she had nothing to fear. The part of myself that belonged to her and the part of myself that responded to King were so different, it was impossible for me to play either one false with the other.
But I didn’t get the chance to explain. The telephone on her desk rang. It was the Colonel, tracking me down. I thought guiltily of the phone in my apartment off its hook while King and I spent the afternoon in bed. I envied, in that moment, Mr. Nakamura’s sacred Sundays off. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been inaccessible to the Colonel for more than a handful of hours.
Helen stepped out to go to the ladies’ room while we spoke. I found her in the lobby after. She’d splashed her face with water and combed her hair. I tucked an errant strand of it behind her ear. “He wants me to come see him right away, but I’ll be back tonight, I promise. I won’t let you down again, darling.”
• • •
The Colonel opened his door elegantly attired in white tie and tuxedo. I remembered there was a charity event for the Liederkranz Society on his calendar that evening. It must have been a struggle for him, I thought, to bath and dress himself without Mr. Nakamura’s ministrations.
“By Gad, son, what happened to you?” He led me through the apartment to the library, the Persian Saruk Helen and I had picked out cushioning our footsteps. In the two years since he’d moved in, the apartment had been elegantly furnished, but he so enjoyed the light in the library that he’d decided against curtains. He brought me toward the window so he could examine my eye, the evening sun making me squint. “You look like you lost a boxing match.”
“That’s not far from the truth, sir.” Since he’d already recognized my black eye for what it was, there didn’t seem much point in lying about the rest of it. “I was caught up in a police raid Friday night.” I told him about King coming to New York, that I’d taken him out on the town, how we ran into the police.
“I wouldn’t be that pessimistic, sir. The Amsterdam News had only good things to say. Helen thinks they might be able to make up their losses, given enough time. Perhaps it will start to catch on—”
“You’re not understanding me, Kramer. I am telling you to shut it down.”
“Shut it down?” How exactly was I supposed to do that, I wondered?
“I want you to dissolve the company. You’re the president, after all. I’m calling in my loan. Honor all the contracts first and make sure there are no outstanding liens. I’ll take whatever’s left and write off the loss. And get in touch with Martin Beck tomorrow. Tell him the Olde Playhouse is his if he still wants the property.”
I was stunned by the swiftness of his decision. “But, sir—”
He leaned forward, planting his elbows on his knees. “I can’t have this kind of publicity, Kramer. Not so close to opening day.”
I knew he was nervous about Yankee Stadium. The press hadn’t yet caught wind of the fact that he was buying Huston out, once construction was complete. The man was down in New Orleans enjoying one last spring training with the players. The opening day program featuring the two Colonels would be the last souvenir of their partnership. I couldn’t see, though, what that had to do with Helen’s play. “But, sir, a person would have to look up the incorporation papers of Pipsqueak Productions to even know you were an investor.”
“Exactly. On April eighteenth, I’ll be standing beside dignitaries, introducing the world to the greatest stadium since the Coliseum in Rome. I will not risk having my name associated with an indecent theatrical. Especially not one produced by a young woman whose clothes I pay for.”
Now I understood. The press could easily twist the Colonel’s support for Helen and her family into something scandalous. Not that the reporters would necessarily put their insinuations into print. How many nights had they watched Babe Ruth stumble into a hotel with a woman not his wife on his arm, and never a word in the morning papers? Even so, a reporter with dope on a man was a dangerous thing.
“I hate to crush her dreams like this, Kramer, but it’s best you get it over with. Tell her tonight.”
“You want me to tell her?”
“I have plans, as you can see.” With a sweep of his hand he indicated his tuxedo. “You are attending the performance tonight, aren’t you?”
I nodded, too dispirited to speak. I’d already let her down, and now I’d be the bearer of bad news. Perhaps it was for the best, though, that I be the one to tell her. I could spend the entire night with her, if she wanted, now that King was on his way to New Orleans. A picture of him in the sleeper car on the train flashed into my mind. I felt the shiver of it through my whole body.
The Colonel was talking. I’d missed some of what he said. “Assure her I’d value her help.”
“With what again?”
“The party at Eagle’s Rest. The architect tells me the mansion is ready to receive guests. Once the Yankees have barnstormed their way up to New York, I want to host a reception before the start of the season for the team managers and some of the players. Ruth, of course, and Waite Hoyt. Not Carl Mays, obviously.” I took out my notepad and a pen, but he waved it away. “I’ll give Osamu the guest list. The point is, I can’t very well have their wives asking my butler for, well, whatever women ask for. So, you’ll come up, the two of you, and Helen can play hostess. Take her to Macy’s for a new spring outfit. She’s been wanting a fur coat, hasn’t she? Not mink, though. Something respectable. Seal, perhaps.”
Our interview seemed to be over. He stood and smoothed the creases from his tuxedo. “Let her down gently, Kramer. Remind her she knew the risk she was taking as a producer.”
“Maybe she’ll go back to managing.”
“We’ll see.” He walked me to the foyer. “Did you know, Kramer, I have an apartment here in this building, a two bedroom in the back on the ground floor?”
“Really?” My thoughts immediately flew to King—a bedroom for each of us, perfect for two bachelor roommates.
“I bought it as an investment, but I think you should live in it. It’s unfurnished, and the maintenance will be more than the rent at that place you have now, but it’s about time I raise your salary. And it will make things easier for me if I can always find you.”
“That’s very generous of you, sir.”
“You need looking after, Kramer.” He stepped close to examine my eye. I thought he might recommend I see a doctor—the bruise had been getting nastier as the day wore on. Instead, he gently took my jaw in his hand and turned my face to the side. I could smell the schnapps on his breath as he brought his lips to my eye and kissed it.
It seemed to be the sign I’d been waiting for, the signal that we were alike, two queers playing it straight for appearance’s sake. But what if I was wrong? I hadn’t grown up with a father. For all I knew, this was how a man might reassure his injured son.
The Colonel’s voice was a whisper in my ear. “I want you to stay out of trouble from now on, Kramer. Men like us, men with secrets, we cannot afford to be compromised.”
Chapter 32
I wiped mist from the windowpane to look out at the Hudson River. Daffodils, taken by surprise by the Easter cold snap, wilted in their flower beds as peacocks dragged their emerald feathers across the frosted lawn of Eagle’s Rest. Down along the riverbank, the first train of the morning snaked its way toward Albany, people already up and about their business.
I had no business to be about. Pipsqueak Productions was dissolved. The night of our second performance, Albert had insisted on coming up to my apartment with me after the play. For a moment, I thought he would kiss me in my living room the way I’d seen him kiss that man. But no, when he sat me down on the couch and took my hand, it was to deliver the news that Jake was calling in his loan. The performance we’d just attended turned out to be the last of my career.
A flurry of activity had followed as the costumes and props were auctioned off to pay our debts. Poor Richard Martin suffered a relapse as he scrambled to rescue every historically significant scrap of paper from the Olde Playhouse. We sent him back to Montauk while the archives of the theater were bundled up and tossed out with the trash. Bernice Johnson helped me close our accounts: contracts with the cast settled, severance checks to the crew issued, debts cleared. Jake more than made up for his loss on our loan with a real estate deal that proved the building had been the smarter investment all along. A wrecking ball now presided over the empty lot where, for nearly a century, the Olde Playhouse had stood.
When Jake asked me to help him organize this reception for the Yankees, the last thing I wanted to do was throw a party, but how could I refuse him? At least it gave me something to think about besides my failures. The team was barnstorming up the coast—last I heard from my brother, they’d reached Maryland—and in a few days they’d arrive here at Eagle’s Rest. I’d been relieved, when Mr. Nakamura reviewed the guests with me, to see that King Arthur, a walk-on recruit who wasn’t even signed yet, hadn’t made the list.
“Helen, are you ready?” Albert’s voice followed his knock on the pocket door.
“Yes, come in.” I’d unlatched my side once I finished dressing in the adjoining bathroom, which was stocked with a selection of ladies’ toiletries chosen, I assumed, by the salesgirl at Macy’s. The closet, too, had been filled with outfits appropriate for the varied activities of country living. There were fla
nnel trousers and sturdy shoes for walking around the estate, smart outfits for lunching in the dining room, and a cocktail dress for evenings in the parlor. When I pulled open a drawer and found silk pajamas and cotton underwear, I could imagine the chain of command that resulted in them being there: Jake telling Albert to make sure I had whatever I’d need; Albert informing the salesgirl to put together a complete ensemble; Mr. Nakamura unwrapping the delivered packages; the laundress ironing out the wrinkles and putting everything away.
The door slid open and Albert appeared, dressed and ready for the day. “Mr. Nakamura’s bringing up breakfast. Well, good morning Pip! Have you been out yet today?” Albert crouched to pet the silly dog, who was turning pirouettes on his tiny hind legs.
“I had him out earlier. It’s still freezing, can you believe it, and April already?” I placed my fingers on his cheek where, a month ago, King’s fist had landed. “You’re just about good as new, Albert. I can hardly see it anymore.”
He put his hand on mine, kissed my palm. “The Colonel just said the same thing.”
In Jake’s room there was a breakfast table by the bay window on which I found plates of eggs and baskets of bread and jars of jam. I took my place in the chair Albert pulled out for me. Jake was in his dressing gown and slippers, an informality that had surprised me my first morning at Eagle’s Rest but which I’d now come to expect. Beneath the table, Pip and Princess conspired to cadge pieces of sausage. Mr. Nakamura hovered in the background while we leafed through newspapers and watched the morning sun melt the frost from the lawn. Our plates were whisked away so unobtrusively I only realized they were gone when Jake and Albert lit cigarettes and leaned back in their chairs. The smell of tobacco was delicious, but I knew Jake would disapprove of my asking for one.
Bachelor Girl Page 28