Cease to Blush

by Billie Livingston

  Frank makes no pretense of rising. Annie sits next to Dean.

  Old Man Kennedy leans in. “I don’t think we’ve been introduced. I’d remember you.”

  “Aren’t you sweet.” Annie tosses him the sort of smile she reserves for people she’d enjoy more if they were dead. She switches her gaze to Giancana. “Judy sends her regards.”

  “Campbell?” Frank asks. “Where’s my goddamn regards,”

  “Judy,” muses Giancana. “Where’d you see her? Washington?”

  Marilyn tenses. Celia’s finger bones crunch under the pressure.

  “Yes, I was in D.C. for a short engagement and ran into her at the Mayflower.”

  “Seein’ that boyfriend of hers again.” He chomps on his sogging cigar. “Sonuvabitch wouldn’t be nowheres if it weren’t for me.”

  Marilyn leans over Celia’s menu. “What did you say you were going to have?”

  Annie smiles sweetly to Giancana. “She’s got her own apartment in L.A. now. I ran into her again on the street just outside her new pad yesterday—-just after all that bomb-scare stuff. She seemed a bit shook up and I was feeling rattled myself so we went to Romanoff’s for a drink.”

  Giancana grunts, “I bet she’s shook up.” He trains his hooded eyes on Joe Kennedy Sr. “People gettin’ harassed all over the country, guys gettin’ deported.”

  “He wasn’t a supporter of ours,” Kennedy mutters.

  Giancana’s head turns slowly. “If there’s no support, you’ll know it.”

  “Okay, we already chewed this fat,” Frank intervenes, picking up his menu. “Let us masticate upon a lovely slab of beef.”

  A waiter slips in beside Monroe’s chair just as Kennedy’s hand is nosing its way up her dress. “Madam?” the waiter asks.

  “I have to go to the powder room.” She pulls at Celia.

  “I’ll have the lamb,” Celia says and lets Marilyn take her to the ladies’.

  She shoves through the door, letting go of Celia and opening her purse as she goes. She rifles for a pill bottle, fusses two capsules into her hand and tosses them down. A tiny Mexican washroom attendant offers her a drink of water. She swallows and hands the glass back. She turns her back on her reflection, and her fingers form a cage around her eyes.

  The attendant offers a tissue. Marilyn shakes her head and hands her purse to Celia, who stares at it, flummoxed a moment, then opens it and removes a ten-dollar bill. “Would you mind giving us a minute,” she says, handing over the money.

  With a nervous smile, the attendant murmurs, “Certainly, miss,” and leaves.

  A sudden yowl from Marilyn and she slams a hand on the counter. “Stupid bastard.”

  “Maybe Dean could switch seats with you.”

  “What?” She reaches for another tissue. “Not Joe. His crummy son of a bitch.” She dabs at her eyes. “Two years I’ve been seeing Jack. I should call his wife … I’m—I’m getting a divorce and then what will I be … single, white and a hell of a lot older than twenty-one.” She throws up her chin. “And now he’s fooling around with … Who the hell is Judy Campbell?”

  Celia shrugs. “She was seeing Frank for a while too. She had her picture in the gossips once with Sam—this Sam …” She waves in the direction of the dining room. “Maybe it’s not true about her and Jack.”

  Marilyn turns to the mirror. “Look at me.” She touches the skin under her eyes. Her hands follow her gaze down over her breasts to her stomach. “I’m fat and old. Old and fat.” She glances at the other woman’s reflection. “H’old are you, Sheila? … shh … Celia?”

  “Twenty-three.”

  “Twenty-three. Twennnny-threeeee.” She stares at her own face. “Ten, eleven, twelve years younger, ten, eleven, twelve pounds lighter. They take big bites of me every day and still how fat I am …” She opens her purse and takes out the pill bottle, flips off the cap.

  “You already did that.” Celia tugs at her pearls. “You took your medicine.”

  Lids falling sleepy down her eyes. “I did? A little dab’ll do ya,” she says and tosses the bottle back in her purse, plucks out her lipstick. As she runs the tube over her lips, a knee buckles and, throwing one hand down to catch herself, the other draws a red slash down her pale powdered chin. “Shit. I’m so stupid, and ugly and—”

  The restroom door opens and the little attendant pokes her head back in. Marilyn drops the lipstick. “Stop looking at me! Stop it, stop it, stop it.” The attendant bolts back out.

  Celia pulls some tissues and comes to her side. “Look at me.”

  Her arms limp, Marilyn turns. Plump tears roll. “They put me in a crazy house a few months ago, you know. They put me in a little room in a straitjacket and left me there to rot while all the people came by to stare at me like I was in a zoo. One after another.”

  Celia’s throat knots. “Don’t cry.” She puts the Kleenex to Marilyn’s mouth, “Spit.” She runs it gently under her eyes. “You’re too pretty to wear all this makeup.” Marilyn swallows, eyes to the ceiling. Celia turns the tissue over and wipes off her chin. Reaching for the lipstick, she finishes with a new red bow on Marilyn’s face.

  “You’re very sweet to me.” Taking Celia’s face, she sets a full kiss onto her mouth just as the door opens, then gently taps her forehead against Celia’s before she walks past Annie coming into the restroom.

  Annie gawks at the closing door. She pivots to Celia. “She practising for her lifeguard ticket or what?”

  Celia pats her lips.

  Annie cocks an eyebrow. “What I Did on My Summer Vacation by Celia Dare.”

  “She was just saying thank-you.”

  “Uh-huh. I heard she and the great Lili St. Cyr were lapping each other’s shores once upon a time. I guess it’s true.”

  Celia tsks. “Don’t be disgusting. It wasn’t like that at all.”

  “She’s a bombshell all right, a walking goddamn minefield.”

  “She’s just scared and lonely like everyone else.”

  “Well, well, well. One kiss and suddenly she’s sittin’ alone in a dark theatre watching Gentlemen Prefer Blondes over and over …”

  “Would you stop? I just feel bad for her. She’s like this infant and these guys—those guys out there … do you think Dean ever slept with her?”

  “If I said yes, would you never wash your mouth again?”

  Celia leans against the counter. “She ate two of those Nem-butals when she first came into the restaurant and she already seemed a little stoned. Then she swallowed two more when she came in here. And then she forgot and went for more. Isn’t anybody taking care of her?”

  “She’d prefer to be someone’s fuck-dolly There was a rumour goin’ around that Giancana had her sleep with some French diplomat and taped the whole thing for blackmail.”

  Celia makes for a cubicle, slams the door shut. “You always wanna believe the worst.”

  Annie takes the next cubicle. “I’m a realist.”

  Celia flushes the toilet. “She’s a messed-up child.”

  Annie flushes, the noise almost obliterating her loud snort. “I already got one child to take care of.” They step out of their respective stalls and eyeball one another.

  “I’m not a child,” Celia blurts. “I can take care of myself.”

  “I know you can, kid. Just humour me.”

  Celia marches off to the sink. “A day late and you didn’t even leave me a message.”

  Annie leans against a stall, a smile playing on her lips. “Does this mean you were worried about little old me?”

  “And since when do you hang out with that asinine Judy Campbell?”

  “Speaking of which. You want the dish or not. Campbell gave me an earful.”

  Celia’s eyes flick.

  “She was a mess. We’re sitting in Romanoff’s and I’m making small talk like I know everything. Next thing you know, she says, The FBI showed up at my door.”

  Celia stares.

  “She says, They asked me if I know Sam Gian
cana. One of them said it was an organized-crime investigation like I might be involved.”

  “The FBI?”

  “The FB goddamn I. I said, Did they ask about Jack? No, she says. And then she says, Oh god, everybody knows. Even Winchell knows. Jack said not to worry, that ‘Sam’s working with us.’”

  “We know Sam,” Celia says. “Are they going to show up at our door?”

  “Campbell’s picture’s in the paper with him for chrissake! And she’s screwin’ ol’ Jacky-boy. Everybody does know.”

  “Why would Sam and Kennedy meet?”

  Annie shrugs. “Castro?”

  The two women jump as the washroom attendant pokes her nose in. “Miss? S’okay I’m coming back?”

  Celia glances at her watch. “Shit. I’ve been in here twenty minutes.”

  Annie walks toward the door. “Ain’t life grand when you got the guts for it.”

  By four in the morning, Celia has finished her last set and gone back to her room.

  She sits on her bed. She stands up, sits down, looks at the phone some more. Picking up the receiver, her hands shake so fiercely, she lets it drop in her lap until the hotel operator’s voice comes on. “Could you place a long-distance call for me? Scarsdale, um … Never mind.” She stuffs the receiver back in its cradle. It rings back.

  She jumps and runs into the bathroom. Door closed, she turns on the shower, takes off her dress and goes about removing her makeup, humming, brushing her hair. She grabs the wall for balance and closes her eyes.

  Reaching back into the shower, she turns the water off, opens the door. The ringing starts up again. She marches to the phone and centres herself. “Yes?”

  “You are there.”

  “Johnny.” A mix of relief and disappointment. She sits on the bed, puts a foot up and rests her chin on her knee. “Where have you been?”

  “Business.”

  “I haven’t heard from you in almost two weeks.”

  “If it’s an emergency, leave me a message at the Desert Inn.”

  “Is it true Judy Campbell had the FBI at her door? Did they ask you about Sam?”

  “They ask me all kinds of things. I think they got their wires crossed lately. Just when you think you’re all on the same team, everything goes haywire.”

  “How do you know her?”

  “Known her since she was a kid. Anything unusual happening at my place?”

  “Nothin’ much. Couple perverts moved in across the street a few weeks ago. Kept trying to cop a look.”

  “In the apartment directly across? They say anything to you?”

  “No … what?”

  “Anyone come to my door?”

  “No. Think it’s you they’re watching? Why would they be watching you?”

  “No one’s been at my door then?”

  “Just electricians a couple weeks ago—something happened with the wiring in your building. Anyway, it’s fixed n—”

  “You let electricians in?”

  “They were from the building.”

  “They didn’t by any chance look like the perverts from across the street, did they?” Celia is quiet. He sighs. “This is why I don’t want you in Vegas right now—they got Sam’s name in a black book says he can’t set foot in any Nevada casino. They’ve been going after Phyllis, too.”

  “The McGuire Sister Phyllis?”

  “You might wanna think about using a phone booth at home. And keep quiet about Sam being there at the hotel.”

  She tugged at her bottom lip. “Everything’s okay, right? You haven’t done anything.”

  “Of course not, honey. Don’t worry. Everything’s jake.”

  After she hangs up, Celia puts on her dressing gown and looks out the picture window into blackness. The dark of the evergreens surrounds and clutches. It’d be seven New York time. Sitting back on the bed, she puts the phone in her lap. Eventually she asks the operator to place a call to Scarsdale. She holds the receiver with both hands, trembling with each ring. After six or seven, a woman’s voice answers. It sounds like her mother’s but raspy and far. “Hello,” the voice repeats.

  She hangs up.

  She creeps down the hall to Annie’s room.

  It takes several knocks and self-identification before Annie’s door opens. “What are you doing in your nightie, get inside before we have a troop of mashers out here.” She closes the door. “That crocked bitch Monroe phoned here twice thinking I was you. Sheila, you know Jack, she says. I don’t know what to do. Since when do you know Jack.”

  “Isn’t Peter here yet? I thought they were friends.”

  “Lawford’s an asshole. If Pat’s not here playing wifey then he’s likely off trying to dip his noodle into every soup in the joint … What’s the matter, you look like hell.”

  She sits and blows her nose. “I don’t know what to do with myself.”

  About to say something smart-ass, Annie shuts her mouth.

  “It’s been two years since I left home and I’m nowhere. Just some stray they let sing in their lounges once in a while.”

  “Think these pricks would let you touch their stages if you were no good?”

  “I called my mother.” Her face crumples.

  “What did she say?”

  “I hung up. I couldn’t speak. It’s like my whole life. I’m sitting there mute and eventually I’m just going to hang up.”

  “Come on, honey. Don’t be a jerk. You’ve done a hell of a lot! You sang with Louis Prima and Keely Sm—”

  “Keely hates me.”

  “Keely hates everyone right now. She just left Louis.”

  “They split up? Cuz of me? …”

  Annie rolls her eyes. “Not that you ain’t some kinda wonderful, but Louis’s been poking everything in heels for some time now.”

  “I’ve been thinking maybe I need to get away from all this for a while. I met a girl who told me she was about to do this new play. It’s small and the money stinks but she really cares about it. Maybe if I was playing a part where I was saying something to the world, maybe I’d feel right. Instead of just goofing off.”

  “Is this about Marilyn?”

  “In the bathroom, she said it’s like they take big bites out of her every day. I think it’s her taking the bites and they’re making her sick.”

  Hardly a breath after she and Annie have rung in 1962, Celia starts rehearsals in Los Angeles for the play she read about in the paper; a modern adaptation of a Greek comedy about two men who try to build a new society based on a utopian world created by birds. It’s small but, she thinks, significant.

  Kevin, the casting director and lead actor, has offered his basement as a rehearsal space. His parents’ basement to be more specific. Celia plays the leggy “Flamingo” as well as a member of the Greek chorus.

  Annie watches from the corner of a ratty old couch as Celia, feather boa dangling off her head and down the back of her jewelled ruby-coloured bodysuit, does her best water-bird strut. Kevin plays up his character’s lascivious underpinnings by groping Celia as she coos past.

  Katie, “The Iris,” plants both fists at her waist. “Kevin, I think you’re missing the point. This play is about the sleazy world of machismo politics and patriarchy and, man, you’re celebrating it, not exposing it. Bad enough your hand is always on the Flamingo’s ass—but you want her to make like it’s cool, like her purpose is to be stroked by you.”

  Kevin groans. “Oh man, baby, you always got somethin’ to say. This play is about enlightenment, escaping the ruins of a bourgeois civilization, not being so stultified by our upbringings that we can only stumble …”

  “This is about bourgeois politics yes, but it’s about exposure. You’re not supposed to be a goddamn hero, man, you’re supposed to be like John Kennedy: too much money and power and capitalist piggery.”

  Annie cocks an eyebrow at Celia. The rest of the cast begins to slump, some taking a seat, settling in for yet another showdown.

  “Kennedy, man!” Kevin stalks the
length of the basement. “Kennedy is the best thing the bourgeoisie has ever offered the beat generation—that cat is righteous, he’s opening the world to the coloured man, he’s saying yes to civil rights. You just don’t like the fact that if the dude was here right now, he’d rather touch Celia’s ass than yours.”

  One of the Greek chorus groans. “Why don’t you two fuck and get it over with.”

  Katie glares. “Not if my box was left empty for a century. Simone de Beauvoir said, No one is more arrogant toward women, more aggressive or scornful than the man who is anxious about his virility. This whole play is just an excuse for you to ball some showgirl with a Marilyn Monroe bleach job. No offence, Celia, but an actress you ain’t and if Kevin wasn’t such a gash-hound you’da never got in the door. You or your friend with the silicone pals.”

  “Honey, please,” Annie coughs. “Sometimes the Lord giveth till it hurts.”

  Kevin cuts in. “Katie Katie Katie … if it ain’t the bourgeois calling the bohemian black! Women should be emancipated and valued and bla bla bla but when it comes right down to it, you’re just an uptight June Cleaver zombie-bitch.”

  “Don’t call her a bitch!” Suddenly a cacophony of chirps and calls from the chorus.

  “She is a bitch. Kevin has vision.”

  “That showgirl shit is a form of oppression—”

  Soon Katie loses all patience and walks out the door. Eventually the rest drift off until there are just five left, including Annie still in the corner, smirk on her face. Celia has flopped beside her. Kevin paces. His pals Ernie and Dinah light a joint, take a drag each and hold it out for Annie, who puts up a hand. “No thanks, I gotta drink later.” The offer moves to Celia. She shakes her head.

  Kevin takes the next haul. “Man,” he sputters through held smoke, “maybe if we’d all had a little reefer to start with, this division could’ve been avoided … This town is eating itself and dying of its own poison.”

  Celia’s eyes flick to Kevin. “I think so too.”

  Kevin takes another drag. “You’re a gone chick, baby. The world just don’t know it yet.” He reoffers her the joint. She takes it, tokes, and falls into a coughing fit. Annie smirks some more.