Annie stabbed a look at the sky. “Well, if she dated him, she must have liked him.” Reaching the taxi, she grabbed hold of the car door and started to maneuver her way inside.
I took the cane as she sputtered and cussed. “And there’s this Tiffany heart with gold inlay. Was that from him? Judy Campbell got notes from Jack Kennedy and he just signed them J and I thought maybe this heart was from Bobby be—”
“Yes! Okay. She liked him. He liked her. And he gave her that piddly little heart. You want to hand me that?” She grasped for her cane. “I’m gonna miss my plane.” Throwing the stick in beside her, she slammed the door shut.
“When was that?” I yelled as she rolled away. “Have a swell trip, y’old bitch.” The cab turned a tight U in the cul-de-sac and sped off down the road.
I don’t recall much of the drive back. I played oldies CDs. I bought another somewhere along the way called Music to Watch Girls By with Andy Williams and Tony Bennett, and yet more Louis Prima. When Doris Day sang “Que Sera, Sera,” a song I’d always found unbearable, I cried. I played it over and over, When I was just a little girl, I asked my mother, what will I be … wiping my eyes with tissue when the going got too blurry.
Soon my head was taken up trying to imagine what Annie’s apartment in Vegas looked like. Paradise Road. Nothing’s the same in Vegas. It’s not as if I could head there now and get any idea of then. Where did my mother fill in as a showgirl? What did she do all day, all night when she wasn’t working? Sit around in that apartment and watch Jack Paar? Mum loved Jack Paar. She thought every talk-show host since paled in comparison—no one else was so clever or sensitive or had the guts to get up and walk off right in the middle of a show because he disagreed with the studio. She loved his ability to say fuck you to foolishness even if it meant losing everything.
After work, Annie comes home to her Paradise Road apartment. Television blares The Jack Paar Show in front of Celia who sits on the couch, one eye on the issue of Good Housekeeping in her lap, the other on Paar and his singing basset hounds.
“Hey, kiddo.” Annie closes the door behind her. “Catch!” She tosses the spare key. “I was thinking: you should keep it on you. Girl got her place robbed the other day and they used the key right out from under her mat.”
Celia looks back at the hounds’ drooping eyes as Paar tries to convince them to sing “Love is a Many Spanieled Thing.” “I thought there wasn’t supposed to be any crime in Las Vegas.”
Annie rolls her eyes. “Oh, no-o-o. Usually they drive a guy outta town before they put a new part in his hair.”
“Jonathan Winters was on tonight. He was a riot.”
“I can never decide if he’s a genius or a retard.” Annie heads to the kitchen, uncorks a bottle and pours. “What’re you reading that rag for?”
“It was on your coffee table.”
“I cannot be held responsible for the reading materials of previous tenants.”
“There’s a thing in here on what it’s really like to be an airline hostess.”
“Don’t start that again.” She holds up her glass. “Want one?”
Celia nods and reads aloud. “‘Even if you’re not particularly interested in being a stewardess, you might like to know what, besides glamour, the job consists of.’”
“Only thing more glam is dumping bedpans.”
“’ A girl must be single; from twenty to twenty-seven years old, five feet two to five feet eight inches; and from 100 to 135 pounds. She must pass a physical examination and psychological tests designed to find out whether she has a stable, pleasing personality.’” Celia stares at the page a moment. “A pleasing personality test?”
Handing her a glass of wine, Annie plunks down. “They don’t call it the cock pit for nothin’. It means, can you say, Yes sir, whatever you need to relax, Mr. Pilot, sir?”
“You’re disgusting. ‘She must also be attractive. Usually she must have two to four years of college … starting salary may be as low as $70 a week, with small yearly increases until, after seven years’ service, a ceiling of $95 a week…’”
“Or you could haul off and be a cocktail waitress thereby tripling your salary. Hmm, what to do, what to do? I told Frank about your waitress-in-the-sky thing. She’s a nice kid, he said, but man, how can she be so stupid when she’s got what’s she got right in the palm of her hand?”
“What’s that ’sposed to mean?”
“It means Phyllis McGuire started spending time with Sam Giancana. And he tore up a hundred-grand worth of gambling markers she ran up. Date the right fellas and can the stewardess crap.”
“Who’s Sam Gianwhatsits again?”
“Sam Giancana. Sam Flood. The weaselly-lookin’ one with the droopy eyelids that Frank runs with. The one crazy for the cherry bombs.”
“Oh him. He’s rich like that?”
“Sure is, sister.” Annie sipped. “Shit, I almost forgot: they need a chanteuse over at the Dunes show tomorrow night. Wanna sing?”
“Everyone’s topless in that show.”
“Except the comedians and the chanteuse. You wanna do it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Christ, it’s the Dunes! It’s a classy show. Don’t be so puritanical, this is Vegas for godsake; every woman in town’s topless.”
Celia stares into her glass. “All right.”
“The enthusiasm. I thought you’d be thrilled. You get to sing on your own—your own numbers.” Annie stands up. “I gotta get ready. You still coming tonight?”
“Yeah. I’m sorry, I’m just—I want to be respected as a singer and I don’t know if—not to say that you’re not respectable but you’re more comfortable with … Never mind.”
Later that night Celia and Annie walk into a private room at the Sands where Frank’s soiree is being held. Frank’s taste is all over the joint in the form of orange and black, and the bar is loaded with Jack Daniel’s, Chivas and the fixings for martinis. A strictly inner-circle crowd. Sammy Davis is there and Lawford, Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh, Shirley MacLaine, Juliet Prowse—Celia’s head spins as she walks in—but no Dean.
A handful of flashy girls, as Celia’s mother would call them (skirts a little tighter, décolletage a little lower, false eyelashes a little falser) are positioned around the room chatting with the men. Frank descends on Celia as soon as she’s in the door. “Baby, you made it. Come here and meet a pal a’mine.” He takes her coat and pulls her with him across the room, leaving Annie to hang up her own. Plucking a martini from someone’s hand along the way, he puts it into Celia’s. “Here, kid, have a little gasoline.”
A man in a pinstriped suit with thick tousled hair and big white teeth smiles as they come toward him. “Jack,” Frank calls, “meet Celia Dare. Celia meet my pal, Senator Jack Kennedy.”
She’s heard of him, though she thought “the Senator” was only a nickname. Kennedy extends his hand. Frank slips away to join his new girl, Juliet, skim his fingertips along her jaw and kiss her temple. Celia looks for Annie as she shakes the senator’s hand.
“Celia, I saw you onstage with Frank and the fellows. I think my sister was a little jealous.” His thick Bostonian accent is almost a caricature.
“Who’s your sister?”
“Pat Lawford, Peter’s wife. No woman wants to see someone so beautiful and agile too close to her husband.”
The Brother-in-Lawford. Kennedy tilts his head to her as if he’s never had such a scintillating conversation.
“Robert Kennedy. Is he related to you? Wasn’t he part of Senator McCarthy’s crew?”
He smiles. “Yes, he’s my brother, Robert.” My brothah, Rahbeht.
“Quite the witch hunt he took part in.”
“Communism doesn’t worry a pretty, young girl like you?”
She blinks at him, sips the martini, wincing against gin. “Persecution and book burning don’t worry a pretty politician like you?”
“Well, aren’t you just fine.” Kennedy laughs overloud. “Do you have a
political affiliation, Celia? Perhaps I could change you into a Democrat if you’d let me take you for lunch tomorrow.”
“My stepfather says your brother was a political whore working for McCarthy.”
“Oh, I like you, Miss Dare.” His tone sounds as though he might offer her candy any moment.
She glances around for Dean again. “My friend’s not feeling well. I should check the powder room.” She forces up the sides of her mouth and walks away.
“Hey, baby, how’s your clyde?” Sammy catches her wrist in his slim dark fingers.
“Smokey! Come dig something over here.” Peter Lawford takes Sammy’s elbow and tugs him. The conspiracy in Lawford’s voice pulls Celia in close to hear, “If you want to see what a million dollars in cash looks like, go into the next room; there’s a brown leather satchel in the closet; open it. It’s a gift from the hotel owners for Jack’s campaign.”
Sammy stops. “No thanks, Charlie. There’s some things a one-eyed Negro does not need to know.” He spins and smacks into Celia, breaks into nervous laughter. “Sorry, baby, I gotta learn to turn in the direction of my good glimmer.”
Lawford moves back to Celia just as Annie sidles up. “I saw you talking to my brother-in-law. He digs you. You better get back over there before some other chick cuts your grass.”
“No, thank you, I’m fine,” Celia says distractedly.
Annie smiles at Lawford. “Pete the Pimp strikes out. Poor you, honey, poor you.” He shoots her a withering look and moves off to catch Sammy.
Leaning in close, Annie says, “Apparently four girls are going to entertain Jacky-boy in the other room tonight. Every colour of the rainbow. Four.”
Celia glances over at Kennedy who’s chatting with a showgirl from the Stardust now. “Entertain as prostitutes?”
“They’re not doing it for their health. And,” Annie whispers, “did you hear about the dough in the closet? I betcha Giancana’s got a piece of that. And I bet Johnny arranged it.”
“He’s not even in town, is he?”
“He’s somewhere. Jack better watch he doesn’t get himself behind any two-way mirrors. He’s been cattin’ around with Monroe and that Judy-chick too. Where you going?”
“Home. I don’t feel that social tonight. Dean’s not here, is he?”
“Frank said he’s got a date.”
“Dean’s always lying to Frank. Maybe he’s not feeling in a party mood either.”
Outside Dean’s door, Celia hears guns, cowboys and Indians. She decides he won’t answer if he’s indisposed and knocks. A loud sigh from inside before the door opens. “Sweetheart! Thought you was Frank comin’ to gimme a punch in the mouth for not showin’ up at his shindig. Come on in.”
“You don’t have a girl in there?”
He holds a finger to his lips. “Just me and the Duke shootin’ us some Injuns on the idiot box.” The two of them plop down on the sofa.
“That Kennedy guy was there.”
“Uh-oh. No, sugar, you cuddle up with Uncle Dino and stay far away from them there snattle rakes. Getcherself bit and …” He muttered inaudibly and put his arm around her like a pet. “I ’spose I should admit to you that Cyd’s on the other station. She’s with Astaire dancin’ around The Band Wagon.”
Dean smells like home. Like Stewart, she realizes with a start. “S’okay. I’ve seen it.” She looks at the screen a moment. “Do you ever read Good Housekeeping?”
“Sure. Helps me determine my figure flaws.”
“I read an article today on how a lot of girls are afraid to get married.”
“How come I never met me one a’them?”
“Said one of the reasons is a girl’s unconscious rejection of her womanly role as a homemaker. They never said anything about her fears that her husband’s going to have four wild girls brought to the Sands for him.”
He watches Wayne lecture a young cowboy. “Probably never said anything about her thinking she’d rather have a go at her husband’s manager either.”
“Oh god, are you still on this kick about Jeannie?”
“My wife spends an awful lot of time with my manager. You think about that.” He takes his arm from around her and sits forward. “Honey, be a sport and call Mort’s place. You can hang up if he answers. ’Course, if he doesn’t, then you gotta call my place.”
“It’s two in the morning.”
“Come on, sweetheart.”
“You’re crazy … Should I get a manager? You think Mort would represent me?”
“His hands are full with my wife.”
“Those who don’t trust generally can’t be trusted.”
“I finally get a teenage girl in my room and she turns out to be a sage.” Dean slumps back.
“I’m twenty-one.” Celia slips her arms out of her coat sleeves, nestles under the heap of fur and drowses from John Wayne to watching The Band Wagon with Stewart.
I stood pumping gas into my mother’s car, reading one of her letters to Annie, the part about the pearls. She called him Stewart, never Dad. Her real father, she told me, left when she was tiny. Four years old or something. He was 4F and, as one of the few men left on the block, during the war, he helped out the women alone. He really helped out the women alone.
Her mother was jealous of her. That’s how it always is.
Nancy! I finally remembered her mother’s name. She rarely spoke of her and when she did, she said “my mother” never “your grandmother.”
I took my receipt from the pump and got back in the car.
Audrey lies in bed listening to her parents bark at one another in their room. Her mother’s had a migraine all day. She had been so looking forward to Valentine’s Day—“To some sort of romance from my husband and what do I get from you. A suitcase? That’s your gift to me?”
“You’ve been complaining about that old bag. I thought—”
“You thought you’d get a pearl necklace for your daughter and a bag for your old bag so she can get the hell out of Dodge.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You’ve been harping on about your luggage: having to hop on another plane to see your sister carrying this ratty luggage. And the necklace—Audrey just got a part in her first professional ballet—”
“It’s the chorus, for godsake.”
“It’s the corps de ballet and it’s damned impressive. It’s the first big step in her career. The pearls were a little celebratory gift from both of us. To show our pride.”
“Pearls? Pearls are a little gift? Please, Stewart.”
“You’re getting hysterical. We talked about this.”
“About pearls?”
“Sometimes I get the feeling you’re too busy competing with her to be proud of her.”
“Don’t you dare put that on me. You buy a string of pearls for a fifteen-year-old girl and luggage for your wife and I’m the bad guy?—Don’t touch me. Just leave me the hell alone.”
Audrey swallows and stares into blackness, scared he’ll walk out and never come back. She listens to his feet moving down the stairs as she touches the strand at her collarbone. She raises them to her lips and bites their milky roughness, then undoes the clasp.
The door to her parents’ bedroom whines open under her knock and she hears her mother’s sniffles, the bedclothes rustle as she turns. “Go away.”
“Mother? It’s me.”
“Audrey, please, let me be.”
“Can I come in just for a second? I was thinking, these pearls, they’re really pretty but they’re too grown-up for me.” She stands over the bed looking at her mother’s shadow against the pale sheets. “They’d suit you better.”
A derisive grunt. “Because I’m an old crone.”
“No. They just—”
“Audrey. I appreciate the gesture. Please go to bed. I don’t want your pearls.”
She heads back to bed, crunching the pearls in her fist, wishing them to a powder. A light knock and she sits up again.
“Are you sleeping?”
She doesn’t answer.
“I can hear you breathing.”
She sniffs a chuckle.
The door opens and Stewart comes in and sits on the side of her bed. “I guess you heard all that. Your mother’s under a lot of strain with your aunt being sick. It’s just frustration at being so helpless in the face of it all and I’m not handling it so well either. I’ll make it up to her. And in the meantime I know she wants you to have those pearls. Despite what you heard. She told me. That’s why I bought them. Okay? I’m very proud of you.”
“I feel like she hates me.”
“Don’t be silly. She loves you. I’d say almost more than I do but that’s not possible. Don’t worry about our fights. They’ve got nothing to do with you.—Hey, The Band Wagon’s on television right now. The Late Late Show.”
“All right.”
Stewart takes the pearls from her hand, fastens them at her nape.
Celia shows up two hours early at the Dunes. She introduces herself to the orchestra members and makes sure they have the music to “My Heart Belongs to Daddy” and “Cry Me a River.”
Later, she watches from the wings as the chorus girls dance, the jokers joke, the strippers strip. Annie’s right, every girl in Vegas is half-naked. Big deal.
When her time comes, the MC announces the musical stylings of New York’s delightful Celia Dare. She slips out into the spotlight, lets the boom of the orchestra fill her breast as she sets free lyrics she’s known since she was a baby almost. Her voice sails into the audience who, so surprised by the auditory resemblance, goes catatonic. By the time “Cry Me a River” ends, the room is alive with chatter. There’s no mistaking the sound of Julie London.
The stage manager catches hold of her as she comes into the wings. “Jeez, kid. Annie West wasn’t fooling. I heard how hacked Keely was when you did her numbers with Prima.” He laughs. “Great gimmick. Don’t hear too many female impersonators. Er, impressionists! Girl impressionists. Love to hear what your own sounds like.” He pats her on the back and walks off.
My own? It hadn’t occurred to her she’d been using anything else.
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