by Wally Lamb
To quell her desperation, Verna gave herself a stiff talking-to. Then she ratcheted up her courage and went out looking for a job. She found one waiting tables a few blocks down the icy street from the hotel at Charlene’s Diner. She worked the supper shift, after which she would trudge back to the hotel. Dreading the thought of climbing the stairs back to her gloomy little room, she began lingering downstairs at the hotel bar. Fueled by loneliness and a relaxing cocktail or two that she could now afford to treat herself to thanks to her tips, Verna started conversing with the clientele—mostly traveling men. Yankee men were much more friendly than Yankee women, she noticed. Even the hotel’s colored maids acted like they were better than she was, something that a colored maid down South would never try to get away with. Maybe all these Yankee women were just jealous of her looks and her shape and the color of her hair which Buddy, her boss back home at the Pak-A-Sak, used to call flaming red. She was no movie star, but she could probably fix herself up pretty enough to be a model if she lived in New York. After all, she’d been in the top three for Miss Crawfish. She might even have won if she’d batted her eyes and wiggled her behind at the judges the way the winner, that homely Phyllis somebody with her yellowy buckteeth, had done. Verna doubted that Phyllis had ever been told she had the face and figure to become an exotic dancer of the artistic sort.
The men at the hotel bar bought Verna drinks and made her laugh. She got embarrassed at first when they talked sugar to her so openly. It wasn’t like she was hiding her wedding band or they were hiding theirs. After a few Pink Lady cocktails, though, Verna would sometimes surprise herself by talking sugar back at them. Or sass, which they seemed to like just as much or even more. Flirting was fun and she’d been starved for fun. This one man named Royal something, who she’d seen before at the bar, told her that, with that red hair of hers, he thought for a minute that she was Rhonda Fleming. And she told him that with that name of his, she thought he might be Prince Charming. He laughed and bought her a drink. After a while, Ronnie, the bartender, started making her free drinks when she came in. She was good for business, he told her. She began slipping off her wedding band and putting it in her pocket before she entered the bar. “I figgered that Yancey, wherever he was, was passing hisself off as a single man instead of one who had stood before a justice of the peace and made vows. So if he could do it, why couldn’t I?”
One night, Verna got drunk enough and flirtatious enough with a smooth talker named Frank that one thing turned into another and she led him up the back stairs to her room. He was a good-enough kisser; she liked that part. But after their clothes came off, Frank failed to bring her to the wild and pleasurable places Yancey had. “He was only in a big rush to finish, and after he did, he popped up like toast from a toaster, pulled up his undershorts, got the rest of hisself dressed, and left. I might as well have been a toilet.”
The next morning, Verna woke up with a hangover that was so bad she had to drag herself down to the drugstore for a bottle of Bayer aspirin “or else I’da had to cut my head off to make the hurtin’ stop.” After she returned to her room and took the aspirin, she began to feel better—good enough to make her bed, which she did every morning so she wouldn’t have to deal with that uppity colored maid. That was when she found money in the sheets: a five, a single, and two two-dollar bills. “For ten dollars, that bum had turned me into a cheap hooker, and it made me feel so ashamed and trashy, I started thinking that maybe I’d just end my life like Lana Turner’s has-been model friend in A Life of Her Own. But that woman had jumped out of one of them New York skyscrapers, and I wudn’t sure you could kill yourself if you were only on the second floor. You might just end up a cripple. Maybe jumping headfirst instead of feetfirst would do the trick. Then I got to thinking of my daddy’s head squashed under that Buick and it almost give me the pukes.” Perhaps she could commit suicide by swallowing an overdose of laudanum like that jilted girl she’d read about in a True Story magazine. But where in the world would she get ahold of laudanum? Would an overdose of Bayer aspirin work? Probably not. She’d always had trouble swallowing pills and might start gagging after the first six or seven and upchuck them. After she died, she was surely going to the fiery place because of the things she’d done. She was in no rush to get there. She might as well just keep living.
She wasn’t about to spend that ten dollars that Frank had left her, though. That would definitely make her a common tramp. She considered ripping up the bills and flushing them down the toilet at the end of the hall, but that seemed wasteful and hadn’t she heard one time that destroying money was illegal? Then she thought of what to do. Designating the cash as her emergency money, she hid it in that Bible the Gideons had placed in the nightstand—specifically, the Book of Leviticus, which seemed somehow fitting, although she couldn’t exactly say how. “The only parts I recalled from them chapters when Mama read them out loud at the supper table was how it was sinful to have relations with animals or family members, or with another woman if you was a woman or another man if you was a man. At least I couldn’t be faulted for doing any of them things.”
A few days later, while Verna was thumbing through a stack of magazines at the library, she came upon a full-page New Yorker advertisement that made her stop turning pages. It said, HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO WIN $5000 IN CASH, ANOTHER $1000 IN MODELING FEES, $500 IN UNITED STATES SAVINGS BONDS, AND A TRIP TO HOLLYWOOD? A beautiful redhead identified as Miss Rheingold of 1950 was pointing her finger, Uncle Sam style, right at Verna. The small print said any pretty girl in the US of A who was twenty-one years or over, married or single, was eligible. All she had to do was fill out the entry blank at the bottom of the page, enclose it in an envelope along with a full-face photo of herself, with her accurate weight and measurements listed on the back of the picture, and mail her materials to the address listed. Entrants selected for the next round of judging would be notified by mail, it said, and had to be available to travel to the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City on the twelfth of May. From this pool of lovely ladies, six would be chosen as Rheingold girls for the public to vote on. After the votes were tabulated, the winner would be notified and she would reign as the people’s choice, Miss Rheingold of 1951.
Well, Verna figured, the people’s choice had been a redhead the year before, so they must like redheads. Married girls could compete, so that wasn’t a problem. All she had to do was get her picture taken and fib about how old she was. Her measurements would speak for themselves. She hadn’t gotten that skinny, and she could always roll up her bobby socks and stuff them inside the cups of her brassiere.
Verna looked over at the desk to make sure the librarian was busy. Then she ripped the page out of the magazine and left. She went straight across the street to the Loring Photo Studio, where she sweet-talked a photographer’s assistant into taking some photos of her while his boss was home having his lunch. The next day, at lunchtime, she returned for her free head shots. “I had to smooch with him a few times before he’d cough ’em up, but that wudn’t anything, ’cept I had to throw out a perfectly good piece of spearmint gum that hadn’t even lost its sweetness yet.” She wrote her measurements on the best of the photos, slid it into the envelope with the form, and sealed it. So that her entry might get noticed among the ones from other hopefuls, she pressed a lipstick kiss on the sealed envelope flap and beneath that wrote that she was often mistaken for Rhonda Fleming (an exaggeration) but that she herself thought she looked more like Maureen O’Hara (an out-and-out lie). She decided that, as soon as they notified her that she needed to report to that hotel in New York, she would use some of the money hidden in the Gideon Bible for bus fare. An investment was a kind of emergency, she reasoned; why not spend $10 for the chance to win $6,500 in prize money? With a fortune like that, she’d probably be able to buy Yancey one of those MG sports cars he was so crazy about and herself some diamond earrings “and maybe even one of them mink stoles that rich ladies wore.” She might also buy her mother an electric stove
to replace their old wood-burning one. She would have it sent to her for a big surprise. RuthAnn surely would forgive her then, and tell her to come back home for a visit any old time her busy schedule allowed, “long as she didn’t get wind that Rheingold was a kind of beer, cuz Mama was dead set against spirits of any kind.”
Verna waited to hear back from the contest people. And waited. And waited some more. “It began to feel like hell was gonna freeze over before I got my invite.” The day before semifinalists were to report to the Waldorf, Verna decided her invitation must be stuck in some dead letter office, or that maybe she’d written her return address incorrectly, or that maybe she’d even forgotten to put her return address on the envelope. She decided she had better get herself to New York that very next day so that, whatever the mix-up was, she could straighten things out.
“I called Charlene and told her I was gonna be too sick to get to work that night and maybe the next night, too. I figgered I could wear my mint green getting-married-in dress and the open-toed high heels I’d tried out for Miss Crawfish in. I’d come in third in that contest, and all I had to do to become a Rheingold girl was get into the top six. Maybe those same shoes would bring me luck. At Woolworth’s I was planning to swipe some Hazel Bishop makeup, but that saleslady with the cat’s-eye glasses musta been onto me. She kept watching me like she was workin’ for the police instead of for the store, so I had to shell out instead of liftin’ it. Another investment, I figured. Once I was a Rheingold girl, I’d probably get all the free makeup I wanted.”
Back at the hotel, Vinnie the bellhop told her how to get to New York. When she went up to her room, she plucked her eyebrows, set her hair in curlers, and went to bed early to get her beauty rest. But her riled-up nerves wouldn’t let her sleep, so she got out of bed, got dressed, put a kerchief over her curlers, and went downstairs to have a drink. When Ronnie asked her what was new, she told him she was going to New York the next day to be a Rheingold girl. “You are? Well, good for you, honey,” he said. “Guess you won’t have much use for that waitress uniform anymore, huh? Or this hotel either. You know, the salesman from Rheingold puts one of those ballot boxes here in the bar every year. I’ll get you all the votes you need. What are you drinking tonight?” A martini was the fanciest drink Verna could think of, so she said she’d have one of those. She wished she hadn’t, though, after he started asking her all these questions she didn’t know how to answer. Gin or vodka? Olive or twist? Shaken or stirred? “Surprise me,” she kept saying. But what surprised her the most was how terrible martinis tasted. But the second one went down easier, and having two did the trick. Not five minutes after she got back to her room, she dropped into a deep sleep.
The next morning, she took her emergency money out of the Bible and put it in her purse along with some of her saved-up tip money. Then she fixed her face and hair and got dressed up as nicely as she could, given the limitations of her wardrobe. “Wish me luck,” she told the girl in the mirror. Then she smiled, wiped the lipstick off her front teeth, and left. Taking the early bus out of Hewett City felt like she was being released from prison.
In New London, she waited over an hour for the Boston–to–New York train, and when it finally arrived, she took a breath, laughed out loud at herself for being so brave, and got on board. She was on her way!
Verna recalls that the train made many stops along the way, and at each one, things got more crowded. “The seat next to mine had went unclaimed for a while, and I was glad for that. But when we stopped in New Haven, a fat lady eyeballed that empty seat, aimed her big behind over it, and landed like a ton of bricks. She took up all of her own seat and half of mine so that I was kinda pushed up against the window. At first I didn’t see she had a lapdog with her, but then I did. It was bulgy-eyed and snaggletoothed and not much bigger than rat-sized. The fat lady kept talkin’ baby talk to it, sayin’ stuff like ‘Mommy wuvs Java and Java wuvs Mommy.’ From time to time, she’d kiss it on the lips and let the dog lick her neck. Neck-licking was one of Yancey’s lovemakin’ techniques, so it made me kinda queasy to witness it. If I’da had the nerve, I woulda told Mrs. Fatso to go home, open her Bible, and read the Book of Leviticus, or else get herself a fella that she could neck with instead of a dog. I didn’t have it in me to say it, though, so I just sat there and looked out the window, trying not to see the reflection of her and her dog all but having relations with theirselves.”
By the time the train pulled into Grand Central Station, Verna was feeling more haggard than beautiful. “I was sweatin’ like a sow in heat, covered in dog fur, and most likely smellin’ like dog, too. Luckily, I remembered the little bottle of Evening in Paris perfume I’d put into my purse the night before. So I went to the ladies’ and doused myself good before I walked outa that station and into the crowded street.
“Tramping around looking for that hotel I was suppose to be at, I got to thinkin’ that whoever set up New York City must have been tryin’ to confuse people. Every street had a number, but some of them numbered streets was called avenues, not streets, and I couldn’t figger out the difference. It didn’t make no sense, no matter how many people I stopped and asked. I got so confused that I kept walkin’ past places I’d already walked past.” She would have flagged down a cab to take her where she needed to go, but she had no idea how much that would cost and didn’t want to waste her money or get flimflammed. When Vinnie had told her how to get to New York, he’d warned her that the city was full of swindlers.
“When I finally got to the right place, my feet was burning and blistered somethin’ turrible from them high heels of mine,” she says. “If they was lucky shoes, then it musta been bad luck.” Outside the hotel, she approached two elegantly uniformed doormen. “This the place where they’re pickin’ the Rheingold girls?” she asked them. They looked her up and down like she was a curiosity. Then they looked at each other. Then back at Verna. Finally, the younger of the two said yes, this was the place, but they’d been at it for a couple of hours already. “ ‘Well, then they’re probably wondering what’s become of me,’ I said. ‘Where should I go?’ He gave me directions to the ballroom, but I coulda done without that smirk on his face. Or the other one rolling his eyes. What made those two think they was so special?
“I made a beeline through the lobby, although if I wudn’t so late, I’da loved to gape at how beautiful everything looked. It was like the inside of a storybook palace! Maybe after I got picked to be a Rheingold girl, I’d get a postal card of the place and send it back to Mama, Nettie, and Lucy Jean. Turns out that doorman’s directions stunk. It took me having to ask three more people before I found it.”
All the doors into the ballroom were open, and there was a lot going on inside—men in suits sitting at tables, pretty women chatting with them or else waiting in line for their turn. Photographers flashed pictures. Waiters carried trays of drinks and little sandwiches. Then two famous people walked right by, not ten feet away from her, chitchatting with each other. One was that woman from the ad that had brought her there in the first place: Miss Rheingold of 1950. “The other was Mr. Errol Flynn hisself, looking even handsomer than in all those moving pictures I had seen him in. He was a tall drinka water, too, and that gray suit he was wearing was a humdinger—had a little polka-dotted handkerchief pokin’ out of his jacket pocket that matched his necktie. ‘Hey, y’all!’ I called. It come out of my mouth before I could think the better of it. Miss Rheingold raised her eyebrows and kept walking and talking, but Errol looked over his shoulder and gave me a wink and a smile. I was lucky my heart didn’t explode when he done that!
“In the middle of the ballroom was three signs held up on poles. They had arrows on them that said which line you went in if you were a blonde, a brunette, or a redhead. My line was the shortest, but when I started making for it, a bald man grabbed my arm and stopped me. ‘Hold on there, toots,’ he said. ‘Who might you be?’ When I told him, he checked a list and said, ‘Well, I’ve got a Harrison and a Hughes, but
I don’t see any Hibbard. And anyway, you can’t just jump in halfway through the elimination process. It’s almost noon. Half the girls have already been handed their pink cards.’
“I asked him what in the dickens that meant, and he said it meant sayonara, better luck next year. Then he said he needed to see my letter of invitation. ‘Well, that’s just the thing,’ I explained. ‘It got lost in the mail, and that’s why I’m late. I didn’t know what time y’all wanted me to get here.’ And he says, suspicious-like as if he was some kinda detective, ‘I see. And might I ask where your portfolio is?’ I told him sure, he could ask, and once he told me what that was, I could tell him where mine was at. He held his hand out to all them gals in the different lines. ‘Sweetheart, these girls have all had extensive modeling experience,’ he said. ‘You’ve probably seen most of them on magazine covers. Now your invitation didn’t get lost. They never sent you one. Can’t you see that you’re way out of your league?’
“I tried reasoning with him. Told him I was all the time being mistaken for movie stars, and that I came all the way here from Connecticut. ‘And the redhead line is the puniest one,’ I added. He said he was sorry, but Connecticut was only one state away and waiting in line would be a waste of the judges’ time and mine because I didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of becoming a Rheingold girl. I felt like cryin’ when he said that, but I wudn’t gonna give him the satisfaction. So I thanked him kindly, pointed my chin in the air, and started back down the hallway. Just in case his beady little eyes was following me, I made myself walk like my feet wasn’t killin’ me.
“Crossing that fancy lobby with its glittery mirrors and chandeliers and giant vases of flowers, I stopped, sat down on one of them red velvet couches, and took off my damned high heels. My feet was a sight, all blisters and dried blood underneath my nylons. I got up in my stocking feet and headed for the door, holding my head up high like it was the normalest thing in the world to stroll through that lobby barefoot, holding your shoes.