If Lisa got pregnant, she would be ousted from the airline. Her mother would classify her as a whore and disown her, and she would be left penniless, with nowhere to live but a house for unwed mothers. Unless Billy were to marry her—but that wasn’t the beginning of the marriage she had planned.
She took a deep breath as she stepped back into Billy’s bedroom. He had thrown a blanket over himself; he was sprawled across his bed, flipping through a magazine.
When he saw her, he beckoned her closer, and she leaned in for a kiss, his warmth close. He wasn’t wearing a rubber. He wrapped his arms around her, pulled her down to the bed, and started to lift up her skirt.
A strange tug in her throat caused her to roll over. “We’re not married,” she whispered.
“Maybe that can happen soon.” He bit her earlobe, which hurt, but she stayed in the area of his warm breath.
Then she sat up suddenly, with some power in her abdomen—upright and still dressed as he sat fully exposed. “Well, we’ll see, I guess,” she replied.
Then she slid off his bed, onto his floor.
Billy jumped off the bed and headed toward the bathroom, by himself.
She was left alone in his immaculate bedroom. His mother cleaned it every day, even polishing the lightbulb in the ceiling fixture.
They watched television for a while after Billy got dressed, eating food from cans they had found in the pantry. He was relatively quiet with Lisa, but he laughed uproariously when the comedy hour came on.
When she left to go home, he gave her a peck on the lips.
Lisa went down to the sidewalk, toward her car, though she needed a moment before she could drive.
27
Madeline
The store was so busy that Madeline barely had time to eat. As she lost weight, she had to quickly let in the seams of her own dresses.
And then he was mentioned again, and it was two days before she could touch a bite of food.
She had been pinning up a skirt for Mrs. Morello, another one of the society ladies.
“That ex-husband of yours really is a cheating liar, isn’t he, dear?”
“What?” The measuring tape fell from Madeline’s mouth. She hadn’t breathed one word about Fred to any of these ladies.
“You don’t have to act surprised, dear. It’s really obvious that he was cheating on you.”
“What do you mean?” Madeline stammered, unlike her.
“You know, honey, Fred was trying to get at me during one of those galas a few years ago. I was fixing my makeup in the powder room, and when I went out, he was right there, as though he were waiting for me. He smiled and just so casually put his hand on my rear, rubbing it like I was a little puppy. I slapped him and ran back towards my husband. But Fred gave me his warning, that he would crap all over my husband’s reputation if I were to tell anyone.” Mrs. Morello sighed. “I was really relieved when I heard you were divorced from that man.”
“Oh, God.”
In the dozens of reflective surfaces around her shop, Madeline caught her image and hid her face. Mrs. Morello stepped down from the fitting pedestal and clutched Madeline’s shoulder.
“I’m sure this is something you don’t want to confront, dear.”
The tears came fast, and she turned away. “I’m sorry.”
“You know—the things you may tell me now may help other women. What do you think about giving me a little ammunition? I might as well add some truth to the fight and bring justice to your name.” She grabbed Madeline’s hand. “I’m sure you wouldn’t want him to win another term of office, would you?”
“What’s he been saying?” Madeline asked, though her ears strained inward, as though she could block it out.
“Are you sure you want to know, dear?” Mrs. Morello glanced at her sideways.
Madeline tightened her jaw. “You can tell me.”
“Well, dear, he’s telling everyone that you got divorced because …” Mrs. Morello paused, clearing her throat. “Well, he’s saying it’s because you wanted him to do—things—that he didn’t want to do.”
“Things?”
“Like things with another woman. Bringing another woman into the house and all that. Whatever the French call it—a ménage, or something like that.”
Madeline’s eyes opened wide like saucers, and she flinched as if she’d had a punch to the gut. Suddenly her spine rolled inward as something airy and absurd hit her tongue. She giggled out of control—so loud that she almost couldn’t hear Mrs. Morello. “You’re serious, now?”
“He said that you thought all of us ladies were beautiful, darling, and that’s why you started a dress shop—so you could better, well, access us in our beauty. So you could give one of us an invitation.”
“Ha!” she heard herself scream, and then she threw back her head in laughter, cawing like a bird, pushing all of the ridiculousness out of her chest—the tight knot she had contained for years, since even before the divorce.
Mrs. Morello laughed along with her, as if she didn’t know what else to do. The two laughed like sea gulls in a beach of trash, and Madeline laughed so hard that tears streamed from her eyes.
Once their laughter died down, it all became silent, and Madeline returned to pinning fabric. She was back to where she was.
“I’m sure you know how early these campaigns start,” said Mrs. Morello. “If you want to really give me the details, I’ll be sure to spread the information, so Fred doesn’t have a chance.”
“Uh-huh.” Madeline nodded. Anything else stayed buried in her chest. “I’ll let you know.”
“Of course, dear. When you’re ready.”
* * *
March was months ahead of the election, but signs of Fred and his propaganda machine were popping up all over the borough, with glorified stories appearing in the papers about what he had done for Brooklyn.
Something within Madeline was welling and growing. It was something that had lain dormant until heat pushed it through its dark root chamber.
She wouldn’t be the one to suffer again.
When the bells jangled again on the Starlite’s door, she took in a sharp breath. She stood up from her sewing machine, and the unfinished sleeves of a dress fell to the floor.
“Mrs. Morello—I’m so glad you’re here.”
“Of course! I apologize that I’m back so soon! I know I was just here yesterday. You must think I’m rushing you. But tell me—when do you think the skirt will be ready? I had forgotten to ask you, amidst all our other talk.”
“It is ready, actually. Though you just might want to try it on and make sure.”
She had completed the alteration with a rush of fire in her blood. It had been ready since the previous day—within a half hour after Mrs. Morello left her store. Now she rustled through the rack of finished alterations and pulled out the jade-green organdy skirt—a statement piece with tiers of tiny ruffles.
Mrs. Morello accepted the skirt from Madeline’s shaky hand and adjourned to the fitting room. Soon she shrieked, from behind the door, “It’s amazing! A perfect fit, Madeline!”
Madeline smiled weakly. Mrs. Morello had redressed herself and emerged from the fitting room with her organdy skirt in hand, ready to pay.
Madeline attempted to stride to the checkout counter with her posture straight and upright, the confident proprietress of her shop, but her heel snagged the edge of a rack, and she stumbled.
She ungracefully caught herself as sweat pooled beneath her arms. She cleared her throat multiple times, but the words were stuck, lodged in her windpipe like burs.
She coughed; she attempted to swallow.
Mrs. Morello, unaware, ran her fingers through the ruffles of her skirt on the hanger.
Then Madeline gripped the edge of the counter behind her cash register and gulped, finally making a space in her throat for the words to come out.
“I have to tell you something.”
“Hm? What is it, dear? Don’t worry if it’s a little more
than your estimate. You did beautiful work on this piece; I’ll gladly pay for it.”
“Not the skirt, actually. It’s about … Fred.” She could barely eke out his name from behind her teeth—it was like an expletive, something she couldn’t say lightly.
“Yes, that buffoon! Tell me, darling, what is it?”
Madeline drew in a breath and glanced out the remaining window, next to the ugly tarp. A young bicyclist raced past her store with the strident sound of bells; her shoulders jumped upward.
“The elections … you wanted anything that might help him … not to win … right?”
“Oh! So, you have something for me, then?”
Madeline’s voice cracked, but she cleared her throat. Her neck was frozen in place, her pupils fully dilated.
Then she made her decision.
“He was cheating on me, you know.”
“Oh, really?”
Madeline drew in another breath. “I’m going to sit down for a moment.”
“Absolutely, dear.”
She settled on the wobbly counter stool—something to hold her, to keep her from getting too dizzy.
Then she spat her words out all at once, as though saying them quickly would mean she wasn’t saying them at all.
“It was with different women. He was cheating with different women.”
“Oh?” Mrs. Morello leaned in toward her, over the counter, her hazel eyes growing wide. Her breath smelled like peppermint, and a hard candy clinked against her teeth. She brandished one from her purse. “Would you like one of these, dear? You look a little faint.”
“No, thank you.”
When she had seen Fred at the bakery, his chuckles with his crony had chased her out the door.
His teeth had been stained with the mud brown of his coffee; he had smirked as she fled amid his hyena-like laughter.
“How did you find out he was cheating, dear?”
Madeline took a sharp breath inward. “There were always women trying to reach him … and I saw something happen one day.”
Then her breath sped up as she peered through the intact window. Passersby roamed innocently past on the sidewalk. She squinted as if to see whether Fred might be among them, watching every word she said, but their faces were too far away.
“You saw …?” Mrs. Morello paused expectantly, a blast of peppermint shooting in Madeline’s face.
But she shook her head. “Yes, I saw—” She paused as she hunkered down on her wobbly stool, her foot tapping against the bar. She had an audience of only one, but the news would spread to all the society women, so she might as well have been onstage, under the white-hot lights. “I saw something. Then he was living with one of the women, but he made me pretend …”
Fred could do whatever he wanted; he had enough friends in high places. She had been keeping a low enough profile, not talking about him publicly. Yet he still had sent his warning sign.
A break through her borders. A smash through her territory.
It had taken only a moment for the ice-cold air to enter from the street.
“What did he make you pretend, dear?”
Madeline gulped and held her face in her hands. “I had to pretend that we were okay. That nothing wrong was happening at all.”
“That must have been impossibly hard—to pretend. So, you had to act like his wife?” Mrs. Morello leaned in, and she gently touched Madeline’s elbow.
Goose bumps prickled up Madeline’s neck. “I knew I would have nothing left otherwise.”
Then she bit her tongue; she couldn’t say any more.
She locked her eyes on a clothing rack. Something stable. Her presentation to the public: a beautiful row of dresses.
“It sounds like he was almost holding you hostage, in a way … for his crimes.” Gently, Mrs. Morello set her fingertips on Madeline’s chin and tilted it upward; then she paused for a long moment before stroking Madeline’s hair. “It doesn’t seem to me that a man like that should be a Brooklyn councilman. What do you think, my dear?”
Madeline gulped and shook her head. Then she broke into a sweat, her eyes locked up front again on the tarp that shrouded the gaping hole in the broken window.
The news would spread among the society circles.
When he found out that she had told, a shattered window couldn’t be enough for him.
28
Lisa
Lisa remained in the driver’s seat for a while, wide-eyed with her experience after leaving Billy’s apartment.
Elaine might appreciate some company. But she still didn’t know where Elaine lived. She’d tried to call Elaine on the phone after the Starlite memorial service, but her sister had answered and reported that Elaine had retired to bed.
It might be too soon for Elaine to have visitors after all.
Instead, she would go see if the Starlite was having a function.
As Lisa drove, her shoulders slackened with the excitement and strain of her experience. She had never before seen Billy so up close, or as clearly, as in his bedroom, when he had fully revealed himself.
When she arrived at the Starlite, a security guard was once again stationed outside the door. She found a parking spot, then stepped out into the crisp air. A fine mist of rain showered her exposed face.
As she neared the entrance, the security guard smiled and motioned her inside. A silver cash box sat on a little table next to him. The Starlight was becoming a swanky spot now, with a guard and apparently an entry fee too.
“Lisa!”
A voice—someone else. She jolted and turned around. Some ways down the street was Billy.
He looked taller than usual, and his brow was furrowed with some sort of anger.
“Hey,” Lisa said, taken aback. The security guard was watching them; he shot her a strange look. “Why are you over here?”
“I called and your mom said you were here.” Billy squinted at the Starlite.
“Why are you here?” she asked again.
“I wanted to make sure you were safe. And not coming here.”
“You came here to wait for me?”
He cleared his throat. “It’s icy out. You shouldn’t be on the roads.”
“It’s not icy.”
“I don’t think you should be here, Lisa. I heard that the owner of the shop is a … well … that she …” He leaned toward her, out of earshot of the security guard, and stuttered, “I heard that the owner likes, uh, women.”
Lisa laughed. “Who told you that?”
“My father. He heard it from some guys at the office. He told my mother not to come here anymore to shop.”
“That’s ridiculous. And even if she does like women, so what? I go to plenty of stores owned by men, and men like women. So, what about that?”
He was following her like a little boy.
Since she wouldn’t go all the way with him, he’d come up with some silly stories.
Pathetic.
She shivered. It was chilly, though not icy like he’d said it was.
She watched him cast an eye at the Starlite, at the tarp over the front window.
The security guard eyed them.
“I was gonna play cards with Mack and my father tonight. But I thought I should stop here and make sure you weren’t out in this weather.” He took her bare hands into his own gloved ones, rubbing them to keep them warm. Lisa allowed her fingers to flood with his heat.
Carefree laughter from within the Starlite leaked through the tarp.
Billy continued to hover over her; Lisa slumped down.
She wasn’t a little girl.
Then all at once, icy bits pelted down on their heads. Lisa cleared her throat sheepishly. “I guess we’d better go home now.”
Billy flashed her a smile. “I’ll follow you home.”
She exhaled, and he threw an arm over her shoulder. He walked her to her car, steadying her as she hopped over a patch of ice to get to her driver’s seat. He drove behind her on the way to her apartment, trailing her o
n the slippery roads.
The yellow beams of his head lamps featured prominently in her rearview mirror. They each parallel parked outside her building, and Lisa went to his car. He unrolled his window for a kiss. Little pellets of ice melted between their lips, tasting like chilled metal.
“Good night, babe,” he said, then drove away.
Lisa bounded up the steps into her warm apartment.
Her legs bounced as she headed straight to her room. Breathless, she plopped down on her bed. The latest issue of her brand-new wedding magazine lay on her dresser. She grabbed it and went directly to a page she had dog-eared—the dress with a six-foot train.
The epitome of glamour. She would look like a movie star.
But soon the pages of white dresses grew blurry, and her eyelids drooped low. She went to her daily calendar to rip off another page. She was scheduled to fly out in a few days.
She would quit after this next flight.
By then, he might have the ring.
29
Madeline
The security guard had a hacking cough, so Madeline sent him home.
It was the evening of the relaxation oasis. As Gloria entertained them with her piccolo, they sipped citrus drinks and looked at glorious pictures of exotic destinations. Madeline had a full-color book she’d gotten through a special magazine offer— “From Hawaii to Indonesia”—with stunning scenes of sunsets and other pictures from nature. She kept the lighting down low to create a calming atmosphere for herself and the ladies.
Madeline glowed under the dim lights with her extra application of rouge, hastily applied. Underneath it all, she was pale, as she worked the cocktail shaker in quick flashes of silver.
“I’ll help.” Cynthia leaned in and grabbed some glasses.
“We’re doing something called a Singapore Sling. I’m mixing in the booze. You can craft the virgin version.”
“I’m still living with my parents. I am the virgin version!” Cynthia laughed.
In a cascade of laughter, Madeline handed over a series of bottles: juices of lime and pineapple, soda water, and bitters. “Here, I’ll pop you a cherry!” she whooped, and slid Cynthia the bowl of maraschinos.
Glimmer As You Can Page 16