by Vanda Writer
Contents
Praise for Olympus Nights on the Square Book 2 of the Juliana Series
Praise for Juliana Book 1 of the Juliana Series
Dedication
Why?
Chapter One September 1955
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Some Fun Facts
Reviews
Hey, It’s Still the 1950s
Behind the Scenes Well-Deserved Thank Yous
About the Author
COPYRIGHT © 2018 VANDA
All rights reserved. This book or parts of it may not be reproduced in any form, except for short citations needed for articles or reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance my original characters have to a person, living or dead, is merely coincidental.
Cover Design: Ann McMan
Edited by: Deborah Dove at Polgarus Studio
Library of Congress Number: 2018902433
Want something for nothing?
Vanda is giving away
Why’d Ya Make Me Wear This, Joe?
her full-length play that inspired the Juliana series
Details can be found at the end of Paris, Adrift
Praise for Olympus Nights on the Square
Book 2 of the Juliana Series
“A tale not to be missed.” (Indie Reader, Dec 6, 2017)
“The novel begins immediately after the war and is chock full of specific details that may not have made it into the history books . . . In every chapter, Vanda highlights the political climate of the times and brings forth a wealth of information describing the anti-Gay, anti-People of Color, anti-Communist, anti-Jew, and anti-Woman policies in New York City and America.” (Chanticleer Book Reviews, 11/16/17)
“I pulled my first all-nighter since college reading this book at one setting.” (Barbara Kahn, playwright, Theater for a New City, 11/8/17)
“Not only do we get a glimpse into the lives of post WWII characters, we also are reminded how tough it was to be a woman back then. I eagerly look forward to the next additions to the Juliana series. If you’ve read Juliana, read Olympus as well! If you haven’t read Juliana, well, what are you doing with your life?” (Amanda Beilfuss, Amazon Customer, 1/1/18)
“A good story with good characters set in a realistically told dynamic time in the history of New York. Indeed, I would say (the author) makes NYC as much of a character as any of the animated ones in her book. You can feel the breath of life in NYC . . . But this is not a “gay” book any more than a novel set in a concentration camp is a Jewish book. This is a book about people dealing with oppression while they try to live large. That is of universal interest.” (Amazon Customer, 10/19/17)
In 2018 Olympus Nights on the Square received an Indie Reader Approval Sticker
Praise for Juliana
Book 1 of the Juliana Series
“As World War II begins, Al and Juliana cross paths repeatedly and a complicated relationship develops. This romance provides a fascinating entry into New York’s gay community during a rarely explored era.” (Publishers Weekly, 6/4/16)
“Juliana is a masterful work of historical fiction that leads you through the early 1940s with substance and style. It is an LGBT coming of age story, a tale of sexual awakening. . .that really opened my eyes to some of the truth of gay history.” (Amazon customer, 7/11/16)
In 2016 Juliana received an Indie Reader Approval Sticker and was shortlisted for the Goethe Historical Fiction Award presented by the Chanticleer International Awards.
Dedication
JAMES L. EVERS,
a Teacher
There are teachers and then there are TEACHERS.
Mr. Evers was a TEACHER.
He even got the boys to write poetry.
In his eighth grade class, I wrote my first poem and my first novel,
With the Dusk Came the Dawning
He would come in early, before school once a week to meet with me to discuss my novel. He took my work seriously. For a long time, it was only my little sister and Mr. Evers who did.
At the end of eighth grade he wrote in my junior high year book:
“My children will read your words.”
His prediction came true. Now, he’s my Facebook friend.
Isn’t life weird?
Why?
This history has to be known.
Sure, you can go and read a non-fiction text.
Lillian Faderman, George Chauncey and others
have written terrific books.
I’ve used them to develop my own story, but watching people live through this history brings you into the heart of the pathos, the humor, the tragedy, the fear and the love all wrapped into one.
Chapter One
September 1955
I leaned against Max’s Packard staring up at the huge ship. The SS United States was the largest, most modern transatlantic ship the US had. It was faster even than England’s Queen Mary. It was the only ship that could promise to get you from New York to Paris in five days!
When we’d climbed into Max’s car a half hour ago, the air had been sticky warm, but down by the harbor the cool breezes flicked at the collar of my dress. I watched the ship’s red, white, and blue smokestacks pour smoke high into the air, spreading out over the afternoon sky.
I could smell the salt of the Hudson and taste it on my bottom lip. I remembered that taste from the days Danny and I sat for hours at Huntington Harbor watching the sun slowly sink behind the tugboats. I could still hear their haunting sound in my mind. I remembered Danny and I before the war walking the docks in the West Village, a little more than a mile from here. We’d argued about whether we should go see Max’s “nightclub singer” or not. I’d been against it. I thought Max was a charlatan and I hadn’t been completely wrong. Even Max admitted that. But imagine if I had won that battle. How different my life would be now. That night changed everything. I went from the potato fields of Long Island to the chaos and bright lights of New York City, where I managed one of the most successful nightclub stars of the decade. And I had a whole lot to do with that success. And now this—the doctor had given me my typhoid shot and I was on my way to Paris on a luxury ocean liner. And soon, very soon I was going to spend five glorious days and four nights with Juliana in our own private stateroom. For the first time since we met fourteen years ago, we were going to be a couple. Of course, outside our stateroom we couldn’t act like a couple. But behind closed doors. . .
Mercy drove up in her Studebaker and bounced out of the car. “Al! Al! This is so exciting,” she squealed as she sprinted toward me. She wore a small, round, white hat that sat on the top of her head like a saucer, a green and white print dress with a bow at the waist, and a pair of short green gloves. She threw her arms around me. “Oh, Al, I’m green.” She held up her gloves and laughed. “I really am.”
I laughed too.
“Al,
you’re going to have such a wonderful time,” she went on.
“Someday you and Shirl will go.”
“I doubt that will ever happen with Shirl’s heels dug in about what she wears.”
Ever since ‘52 when Gladys Bentley, the Negro male impressionist, wrote the article about turning back into a woman by getting married and washing dishes, Shirl refused to wear a skirt for anyone under any circumstance. She didn’t come to the docks because she didn’t want to embarrass us or give us away. “Oh, but look at you,” Mercy went on. “I always liked you in blue.” She twirled me around. “The cut shows off your petite shape nicely. And the hat suits you.”
“I don’t look silly, awkward?”
“No. All right, I prefer you in a man’s suit, but this dress keeps that basic idea. It’s not frilly. You wouldn’t look good in frilly.”
“I guess Max knows what he’s doing.”
“Well, that’s who I’d ask if I ever got a chance to go someplace nice. Who’s the designer?”
“Designer? I forgot to ask Max. I just paid the bill.”
“Oh, you.” She grabbed at my collar. “Turn around. It should say in the back—Evan Piccone. Oh, that’s lovely. You are lucky.”
“Shirl has the money to get you dresses like this.”
“You know how Shirl is about money. Besides, where would I wear it?” I detected some sadness in her voice. “Oh, no matter.” She let it roll off her. “I’ve got something for you. From Shirl and me. Oh, hasn’t this heat been awful? You’re lucky to be getting away from it. And your ship even has air-conditioning! Let me go get your gift.”
I watched her trot back toward her car through the crowds of people that were arriving. Max and Scott stood at the back of the car, talking. Max smoked a cigarette. I studied Scott. He looked okay. Healthy. During the last few months he’d seemed happy. Still, he scared me. I didn’t like being responsible for someone who might do some impulsive harm to himself at any minute. I promised his grandma, Mattie, I’d keep an eye on him and make sure he kept playing the piano, which she was certain was his cure. From depression, not homosexuality. She was one of the few straight people I knew that didn’t think he needed to be cured from that. I suspected my sudden hiring of Scott for this trip had more to do with Mattie than Scott. The days Mattie and I spent together visiting Scott in the hospital, going to shows, going to the lawyer’s office, kind of made me feel like I was Scott’s wife and Mattie was my mother-in-law. Not that I wanted to be his wife, but I liked having her as a mother. She made me forget the horror my real mother had been. It’d kill me if I let her down.
Big muscled longshoremen sweating into their T-shirts dashed down the gangplank of the ship to grab luggage, preparing it to be loaded. I saw Max giving the men a quick up and down look. I don’t think Scott noticed. Even with all the love he felt for Scott—and I believed he did love him—he didn’t seem able to stop himself from giving a quick look at other men. Maybe Scott didn’t mind.
Juliana’s colored driver, Sam, turned her Lincoln Premiere onto the lot. He hopped out of the car and quickly opened the door for her. She slid out, carrying an alligator hatbox along with her Chanel navy-blue quilted handbag, and leaned against the car, talking and laughing with him.
She wore a navy-blue suit with a wide-brimmed white hat and white gloves. Watching her with Sam, leaning against the car, was like seeing her for the first time. It was hard to believe I was thirty-two and she was thirty-eight. Was it possible that with age she’d grown even more . . . “She’s so beautiful,” I whispered to the salty air.
“Yes, she is,” Max said, and I looked up to see him standing behind me smoking a cigarette. Scott was over by the car arguing with a longshoreman about how to load the musical instruments. I’d never seen Scott argue with anyone before. He was taking his musical director job seriously.
Mercy dashed up to us. “Here.” She held a bottle of Dom Perignon with a ribbon tied around it. “It’s from Shirl and me.” She had a rectangular package wrapped in bon voyage paper and ribbon under her arm. She left it there, not saying a word about it.
I took the bottle in my hands. “Thank you, Mercy. This is nice of you. Be sure to thank Shirl.”
“Well, kid,” Max said, “you have yourself one terrific time and come back with lots of stories.”
“Aren’t you coming to our stateroom to drink this? We won’t be leaving for hours. Mercy, you’re coming, aren’t you?”
“Shirl made me promise. Look what she sent along.” Mercy reached into her purse and pulled out a fistful of colorful streamers. “When you leave, I’m going to throw these at you.”
“See, Max? You’ve got to come on the ship. It wouldn’t be fun without you. You have to say goodbye to Scott.”
“I will. Here on the dock. I don’t think Juliana would like being stuck in the same room drinking champagne with me.”
Max and Juliana hadn’t spoken since ’39 or ’40, after a horrendous fight. One story said it was because of sex, another story said it was because she married Richard, and still another said it was because she was trying to be heterosexual. It was impossible to tell which story was true, but their feud continued right into the fifties.
I turned to Max. “Well, you’re my friend and I don’t give a damn what Juliana—”
“You should watch your language, dear,” Juliana said from behind me. “You never know who might be listening.”
I turned toward her. “Uh, Juliana, I didn’t mean . . . what I meant was, well . . .”
“You’d like Max to come help celebrate your bon voyage. I see no reason why he shouldn’t. He’s your friend. I would never want to stand in the way of friendship.”
“Thank you,” Max said to her with a gallant nod.
“Sorry Shirl couldn’t join us, Mercy,” Juliana said, not acknowledging Max. “But we’re glad you came. Oh, look, people are boarding. Shall we?”
As we moved toward the ship, more people came up to us and collected around Juliana. They were fans and friends who’d come to see her off. They piled bouquets of roses and daisies in her arms. Scott and I gathered up the bottles of champagne they offered. Many of them followed us onto the ship as they chattered away in Juliana’s ear. I wedged myself past a fat man who was making googly eyes at Juliana.
A thrill jumped into my stomach, embracing me, as we walked up the gangplank. I felt an urge to run, jump, and do somersaults up the length of it. But I reminded myself I was Juliana’s manager and put on my stern face; still, a child’s grin kept poking out.
As soon as we crossed the threshold into the ship, our shoes sinking into the plush carpeting, the crew—men dressed in blue uniforms and bright smiles on their faces—greeted us. They waved and shouted, “Welcome,” and the thrill in me grew. One of the men gathered up our passports and took them to a desk where another man stamped them. The first guy came back and handed them all to Max. I guess they thought he was the father of the family.
A bellboy took some of the bottles I had in my arms, but he was a little guy and couldn’t hold them all. He kept dropping them, so after a while he gave up and let Max and me take some of them as he led us toward a hallway that had a sign that read “First Class.” I could afford first class. Wow. But where did the other people go? The ones who couldn’t afford first class? I approached the bellboy, his arms filled, trying to lead us toward the elevator. “Where do the other people go?” I asked.
“Other people?”
He kept trying to push through the crowds to get to the elevator while at the same time answer my question. He had to please me because I was first class. “The other people who aren’t first class.”
“Oh. The cabin class people are beneath your staterooms and the tourist class people are way down where the ship shakes. They have their own dining rooms and public rooms, so you don’t have to worry
. Those types won’t bother you. Each class is locked behind an iron gate, so you’ll never see them.” He hurried ahead of me.
“I’ll never see any of them? Ever?” I asked, running beside him.
“Huh?” He was pretty preoccupied. “Oh. No, never,” he said. “They won’t bother you.”
A chill ran through me. “Bother me? I’m one of them. I belong where the ship shakes.” The elevator door opened. Still staring at that first-class sign, I followed our overworked bellboy and the others onto the conveyance that would take us to where the ship didn’t shake.
We got out on the Promenade Deck, away from the ones who weren’t as good as us. I wanted to be sick, but I had to push it away. I had a job to do. This was for Juliana. She would’ve had a fit if I’d stuck her down in tourist class. She didn’t know how to be anything but first class.
The bellboy led the way down the hallway to our room. Other passengers were dashing about looking for their rooms, too. Some were raising glasses to each other and there were a few who were already pickled. Our bellboy got swallowed up in the crowd. We were in danger of being lost, but I happened to have a paper in my purse with our cabin number on it. I led the way down the hall, looking for our stateroom. As we moved deeper into the hallway, it became clogged with passengers moving back and forth. Bellboys and deck stewards dashed past us with arms filled with flowers, fruit baskets, ice buckets, and luggage.
Our group got shoved up against the wall as we searched the numbers on the doors. We slid along, moving closer to our own cabin. I wanted to hurry and get Juliana out of this cramped mess, but she, of course, was laughing at the absurdity of it all.