“Somebody put on some music,” Kevin demands, smoke pouring out of his face. “I need jazz to think. I need Miles, man, I need Coltrane.”
After the debacle in the basement, Katie refuses to return to rehearsals, citing, “All oppression creates a state of war.”
“Is that Simone Bouvier too?” Celia asks Kevin at a greasy spoon in West Hollywood.
“De Beauvoir. Yeah. That’s her problem, she shoulda been reading more Nietzsche.”
“Who is she anyway, de Beauvoir?”
“French chick. Scammed all her ideas from Jean-Paul Sartre.”
“Oh. He’s …? You must think I’m really …”
“Half-hipped? I can get you on the ball, darlin’. These cats are all great philosophers.”
“You don’t think de Beauvoir is a great philosopher?”
“I think she was the old lady of a great philosopher. She supported great philosophy and sometimes that’s more important than being one yourself.”
“Oh.” Celia picks at her nails. A small boy wails at a nearby table and she watches his mother try to settle him while she wrestles the baby against her chest. Celia gazes from the woman and her children to the man across from them. Fork in hand, the man stabs a look at Celia. She jerks her face back to Kevin’s moving lips.
“… raw, unschooled. But you have the heart of a holy barbarian—which is what you need in a family of friends.”
She bites off some egg on toast. “Is that what I have now?”
“Indeed.”
“I like that.”
“Good. Cuz when Katie said she was out, Sherry and Irma backed out too. I think we can expect more dropouts. So, this kick ain’t happenin’.”
Celia’s face drops. “Is it my fault?”
“Naw. Katie used to be my old lady. You can dig.” She nods at her plate. He goes on. “Katie’s all right; she’s just bent out of shape about being a chick sometimes. She’s not comfortable in her femininity. And then you walk in with that fine frame of yours … all girl.”
Chewing, Celia grins. He crows with delight. “You kill me, baby. I’m keepin’ you!”
“So he wants to go to San Francisco! He says it’s a sacred scene and everybody’s diggin’ it!”
In Johnny Rosselli’s apartment, Annie watches Celia’s rapturous face. “A sacred scene? Horny Kevin, weasel-faced Ernie and dopey Dinah?”
“Don’t be like that. I thought they were cool.”
“Do you think Kevin actually believes he’s coloured? I mean, does he look at those white people claiming to be his parents and scream in horror or does he figure he’s adopted?”
“Lots of guys talk like him. Frank and Dean talk like him.”
Annie grunts. “I thought Katie’s quotes were better …”
“Katie! Katie said you had silicone boobs!”
“Well, you can hardly blame her for wondering. All is not gold that glitters and all is not tit that titters. All I’m saying is Katie had his number.”
“She’s just jealous. I want to do the Poetry Follies with Kevin.”
“What are you going to do for money? Rhyme all over someone?”
“I’m selling my car.”
“Your car? So you can run off with that skinny little turd?” Annie shakes her head. “Maybe it’s me who’s jealous. Might be the last I see of you.”
“You mean you won’t be my friend anymore if I go with him?”
“What if I say no? Don’t answer that. Of course I’ll be your damn friend. I just mean—I’ll miss you. Outlaws don’t phone home very often.”
Leonard called. “What’re you doing?”
“Right now … I am flipping through On the Road and one of my mother’s letters,” I said, still on my bed, fenced in by books. “This dork she went out with was a Kerouac freak. And I’m looking through the Women’s Book of Quotations.”
“You still writing about your mum?”
“I used to use this stuff to fight with her and now I’m using it to …”
“Build a shrine,” he said. “Eunice just called. She asked me for dinner and I said I had plans with you and she said to bring you along.”
“You scared of her now?”
“No. Can you come or not?”
Frank’s key turned in the lock. “No, I just got in and I’ve hardly seen Frank. We’re going to hang out.” My glance shot around the blankets and I shoved the letters back into the shoe-box and stuffed it under the bed. I pushed the notebook under my pillow. Frank walked past the door and waved on his way to the bathroom. Shoving the phone between my ear and shoulder, I tossed books into my tote bag. “Can I give you a call tomorrow?”
As I hung up, Frank came in, set a stiff shopping bag on the floor and sat down at the foot of the bed. He picked up On the Road still lying in the sheets. “This book’s awesome,” he said. I said the same thing to my mother when I was twenty, though, at the time, I actually thought it was a juvenile piece of crap. The female characters bored me. They had no teeth.
“Capote said Kerouac doesn’t write, he types,” I said.
Frank tossed the book back on the bed. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“I read that Capote and Jackie Kennedy hung out a lot in the sixties. He had an apartment in the same building as Bobby Kennedy in New York.”
Frank blinked at me. He reached for the bag. “Look what I bought for my girl,” he said, grinning. First he pulled out a black-and-turquoise feathered cat mask.
“Wow,” I said, taking it. Little jewels crested the eye holes. The feathers were a mix of long loose downy bits and stiff quills. I held it up to my eyes.
“Nice. It’s good with your new hair.” He squinted. “Why did you do that anyway?”
“It’s just hair,” I said, dropping the mask away. “It was all dry and dead. And I just wanted—” I shook my head “—to be …”
“It’s okay,” Frank said reassuringly as he patted my thigh. “You could be like a slutty librarian now.”
I looked at the next gift he took from the bag: a purple vibrating dildo. Next a pink rabbit toy with a bunny face on the shaft and vibrating ears at the base. Last what appeared to be a strap-on rubber dick. “What’s this?” I asked, picking up the pleather harness.
“Lotta guys really dig a girl in a strap-on,” he explained. “They like watching her touch it and they like watching her use it on another girl.” I gripped the rubber shaft of the dick portion. “See,” he said, “I’m getting off right now.” He picked up the feathered mask from my lap and fastened it to my face as he kissed me. “Oh hang on, let’s do this right,” he said, got up and lit the candle on the bookshelf. He touched the dusty helmet he’d bought me again.
“Thinking about getting a new bike?” I lay back and scissored my legs like a cricket. He cradled me a moment, then picked me up and turned me so my head was at the top of the bed. “What are you doing?” I giggled.
“I want to see your pussy lit by candlelight.”
We spent the rest of the afternoon and evening in bed. Frank had brought a bottle of wine as well as some cheese and baguette with him and he brought it all in on a cutting board for us between rounds of lovemaking. He’d never been so attentive, so adoring and curious about every angle of me. Not since we were first dating, and maybe not even then. My apathy disappeared with a vengeance and I realized it was depression that had taken me so far away.
As we rested and reclined, drinking Shiraz and giggling like fiends, Frank pulled the notebook out from under my pillow. “What’s this?”
I snatched it back. “Nothing.”
“Baby’s got a secret,” he sang. “Come on.” He held out his hand in a gimme.
“It’s, you know, mother-daughter depression-shit. See?” I fanned the pages of handwriting.
“Huh,” he said, losing interest. “Well, I guess it’s cathartic. I was worried when I first saw you today but you seem way better, actually.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t call when I got b
ack. I—”
“It’s okay,” he cut me off. “I’ll probably totally lose it when my mum and dad go. But we’re good now, right? That’s what’s important.” He reached for the second bottle of wine and the corkscrew. “Hey, does the wireless card for your laptop work in here?”
“God, you are merciless. You’re just dying for me to—”
“I just want to show you how this one girl treats these guys. She reminds me of you. Every time a guy types some demand in the free-flirt space, she slams him. She’s like, Look, buddy, this is my time and I do what I want. Shut your mouth and be a good slave.” He filled up my glass.
“Really?”
“You like that idea!” He put down the bottle and took off at a run for my laptop.
By midnight, I was somewhat smashed and Frank had the computer set up on an end table at the foot of the bed. Webcam bulging up off the top of the screen, an auxiliary keyboard sat in my G-stringed lap as Frank giggled over the streams of instant messages from the twenty or thirty men who had logged on to chat with me. They asked to see my feet, my ass, my tits, my shoulder blades. Someone named Squirrelly asked if I’d draw a heart on my belly for him in lipstick. When we’re in private, I’ll do anything for you, I typed, laughing. My mother’s San Francisco letters flitted through my head. Her big broad grin. “You want more, you little devils? Whatchu wanna? Uh? You wanna, you wanna ‘Come On-A My House’?” I saw her throw up her arms, her breasts bare, the crowd cheering and the cops blowing whistles … I keep thinking I should feel embarrassed because I was in the paper practically naked but I feel sort of excited.
GuySmiley said I looked too nice to be in a place like this, that I looked smart and corn fed. Frank cackled and made rude remarks. “At least he didn’t say you looked cornholed.” I told him to bugger off. GuySmiley said I was an angel. “Oh shit!” Frank laughed. “Smiley wants to go private. He wants to buy ten minutes.”
“How much is that?”
“59.99 U.S.! Plus tax. Wanna?”
GuySmiley seemed like a decent way to start. Frank tapped some keys and a still shot of me replaced the moving picture with the note This model is currently in a private show. Now it was just GuySmiley instant messaging. “Lucinda, Lucy Lucia,” he typed.
My name had been Dori but now as a brunette, I was Lucinda. “Hi Guy. How R U?”
“Did you know that Lucia is the saint of light?” he typed.
“No. How lovely.”
“U are lovely. Wish I could see ur eyes. Will u take off the feathers?”
“I’m a secret. Would you like me to take off my bra?” I could see my own giddy face on the screen moving in jerking pixilation, turquoise feathers dancing across my forehead, my black bra and undies under a sheer black blouse. Frank’s face split with joy.
“Not yet. I just wanted to talk without others,” GuySmiley said.
“That’s sweet,” I typed. “Are you married?”
Frank shook his head and slashed his fingers at his throat. I ignored him.
“My wife died 2 years ago. U look like her.”
I gave an oops face to Frank.
“Didn’t mean to be a downer,” Guy typed. “U have a pretty mouth.” And it went on like that for ten minutes. I felt bad for Guy. He told me sometimes he fantasized that a woman’s fingers caressed his face until he fell asleep.
Once his time was up, we went back into the free-for-all chat room. The instant messagers asked if I had toys. I wasn’t ready for that yet. I said I didn’t have any tonight. Take off your panties and touch yourself, one asked. A few minutes later, Hardboy bought five minutes. He typed what you’d expect: Show me tits, Lets see ur ass, Do U like anal?
Then back in the public forum. The instant messages continued. Do U have high heels? Will U dance for me? I want U so bad. U are an angel from heaven. Back and forth, I went from one-on-one in private to trading messages with fifteen or twenty at a time.
It seemed ridiculous that this, dancing and jumping up and down on my bed naked, showing strangers my feet, telling them to get down on their knees and worship me, was worth three hundred bucks an hour. I was comfy in my own bed, doing only what I wanted and they adored me. Who wouldn’t feel excited?
While Frank slept, I couldn’t. It was three in the morning and my adrenaline rushed. I had made close to four hundred U.S. and Rosemary Clooney was belting it out through my frontal lobe, Come on-a my house, my house, I’m gonna give you candy … I sat in the living room with the shoebox and looked at Time magazine, the photograph of all those kids outside Harry’s Drink. My mother kissing off the world as young hotheads lay face down on police cruisers, hands cuffed behind them. “Youth Culture—Oxymoron or Brave New World?” the caption read. I tried to imagine what her show would’ve looked like. Did she just impersonate one singer per show or was it a medley? I imagined her shopping, choosing costumes and wigs that could easily peel off and reveal another singer underneath. Julie London’s long red tresses could come off to reveal Rosemary Clooney’s blonde, which could come off to reveal my mother’s own hair styled like Peggy Lee’s. And what were her buddies doing? The jig was up with Judy Campbell and John Kennedy. Hoover tracked mob ties and rattled his sabre with a vengeance. He told Bobby who told Lawford who told Sinatra that there’d be no more buddy-buddy. Sinatra no longer spoke to Lawford. Kennedy didn’t speak to Sinatra or Giancana or Judy. Bobby had mobsters deported. And poor old messpot Marilyn staggered from guy to guy until she tripped and drowned in a puddle of booze and pills. In the end, Joe DiMaggio, her ex, arranged the funeral and the Kennedys weren’t invited. I pictured DiMaggio sitting at the back of a bus, her coffin across his lap and all the Kennedys turning around wanting to take the lid off.
After San Francisco, Celia’s celebrity grows. She weaves together her chanteuse impersonations with striptease in a way that’s never been done. There is cachet to seeing a Celia Dare show. To be ignorant of Celia’s buzz lands you face first in Squaresville.
She gets mentioned in Winchell’s column; Louella Parsons calls her a one-gal phenomenon. Even old Hedda Hopper slides her in, referring to Celia as a strange little songbird who can’t wait to moult before your eyes.
Flowers come to her backstage, jewelry, invitations to dinner, to Paris, to marry. Restaurateurs invite her to dine in exchange for an autographed picture. She opens for stars at the El Morocco, the Eden Roc, Latin Casinos in Jersey, Camden and Philadelphia.
Celia and Annie have moved into a roomier apartment in the Village. There’s a bedroom for each of them and a third for their clothes. They buy a colour television too, though most everything is still black and white.
They sit on the sofa one afternoon in front of As the World Turns. Celia frowns at the writing tablet on her knees. She had just got back from her first stint as a headliner at the Latin Casino in Miami and proved she could pack a house. Now she wants to build her own baby: a event on Broadway at the Paramount Theatre. If she bills it as a charity event, she could probably get half the celebrities she knows in on it. She could call it Celia Dare and Friends: A Return to Vaudeville. She just needs a backer.
“Do you think it’s too much me asking him to finance this?”
“Johnny?” Annie sticks a spoonful of yogurt into her mouth. “Nothing’s too much for Don Giovanni.”
“Don Giovanni,” Celia snorts. “Why doesn’t he call back then? Do you think he’s asking Frank?” Celia’s idea for the Paramount show is to have herself and a couple others as regulars with a different major star each night of the week’s run. They can sing a song or tell a few jokes, whatever they feel like. The audience would never know who might show—just the way they billed the Summit in Las Vegas: Starlight starbright, which star will shine tonight?
“Asking Frank what? If he’ll show? He’ll show. Christ, I hate yogurt.” Annie slaps the container down on the coffee table. “Make me do sit-ups today, okay? Ah forget it, I’ll just smoke.” She reaches for her pack.
“Then why doesn’t he phone b
ack? Sammy said he’d do it. They’re shooting a funeral scene today for Robin and the Seven Hoods. I’ve never been to a funeral. You?”
“No.” Annie’s eyes are on the television. “Jesus.”
Celia looks to the screen. As the World Turns had been obliterated with a slide that reads CBS News Bulletin. Walter Cronkite’s voice breaks through. “In Dallas, Texas, three shots were fired at President Kennedy’s motorcade in downtown Dallas. The first reports say that President Kennedy has been seriously wounded by this shooting.”
By dinnertime, Celia and Annie are still in their nightclothes glued to the TV, switching channels every so often and chainsmoking as news anchors refer to Lyndon Johnson as “President Johnson,” correcting themselves if they err. News anchors announce the arrest of Lee Harvey Oswald, suspected communist sympathizer, in a Dallas movie theatre.
Oswald’s picture flashes. “How do they know he’s a communist?” Celia asks.
Across the room Jacqueline Kennedy moves like a pink ghost before the cameras. “For godsake,” Annie complains. “Why doesn’t she change that suit … bits of him all over her.”
Three days later, the country is still veiled in tears. As the television screen fills with the solemn procession of the president’s casket from the White House to the Capitol rotunda, Annie asks, “Do you mind if I turn this? I need a break.” Flipping the channels, each network covers the casket but one. She stops. An anchorman’s voice announces the transfer of Oswald to the Dallas County Jail.
“He’s been shot!” shouts a reporter over the scene. “Lee Oswald has been shot! There is absolute panic. Pandemonium has broken out!”
Celia slaps her hands over her mouth. On the floor in front of the television, Annie falls back on her butt. The camera shows the assassin of the assassin.
“Jesus Christ. I know him,” Annie gasps. “I mean, I don’t know him but I know he owns some dump in Dallas.”
“What do you mean?”
“Maybe I’m wrong. I don’t know.”
In the days that follow, the press reports that Jack Ruby, a Dallas strip-club owner, killed Oswald out of love for his country and a deep pity for the president’s widow.
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