by Sofia Grant
“Is she always so impossible?”
“Always,” Helen said, reaching for the bottle. “I’m not going to say no to Pol Roger. Shall I pour?”
“If you want—but I think I might just go.”
“Oh no, did Willy say something to you?”
Francie truly looked at Helen for the first time. She was in her forties, with cheekbones like Lauren Bacall’s and a streak of white in her dark hair near her temple, and she was wearing tuxedo pants and a man’s silk smoking jacket. “I’m not going to let that little strumpet think she can scare me.”
“Mee-yow,” Helen said admiringly. “Kitty’s got claws, is that it? Don’t worry, you’re not the first gal she’s rubbed the wrong way. I think Rita keeps Willy around because she makes things interesting. She’s either got the crowd hanging on to her every note or she’s starting fights. Tell you what, have a drink with me, and if she comes back, you can throw it in her face.”
“You’re not friends?” Francie asked, as Helen poured nearly to the top of the flutes. Before answering, she took a long sip.
“Depends on the day,” Helen said.
“Well, today isn’t the day I’d pick to get close to her.”
“What did she do to you, anyway? Go after your husband?”
Francie sipped her own champagne to buy herself time. Telling a perfect stranger the story would be foolhardy—but if she didn’t tell someone, she was going to lose her mind. There was June, of course, but she was such a gentle soul, Francie avoided sharing her darkest thoughts with her.
“Not my husband,” she said. “You know the woman who drowned last night?”
“No,” Helen said, shocked.
“She was my best friend. We came here together to get our divorces—in her case, because her husband took up with that—that—”
“I’m so sorry,” Helen said. “I can’t even imagine. But it was an accident, wasn’t it?”
“Nobody knows.”
“And . . . why is Willy buying you champagne? I mean, only if you feel like telling me. Hell, if I was you, I’d probably have made it through that bottle already.”
Francie shook her head miserably. “Believe it or not, Vi’s husband put her in the same hotel as Willy—the Holiday Ranch up the road—and I made the mistake of coming here thinking I could shame her into moving somewhere else. I ended up begging her to simply not ruin the funeral.”
“Your friend is being buried here?”
“She grew up here,” Francie said, “in a little house overlooking Lourdes Cemetery, where her parents are buried.”
Without really meaning to, she launched into an account of their day, explaining how June had come to be involved, how the house had turned out to be a little gem, how her family and Vi’s would start arriving tomorrow. “I don’t know if I can even look Harry in the face without wanting to kill him.”
“Listen, I understand why you’d hate Willy, and I’m not going to tell anyone if you want to toss her in the river too. Only, maybe it would help if you know that she’s way more bark than she is bite.”
“She doesn’t get to play victim,” Francie said. “Not when she’s getting everything she wants by taking it from someone else.”
“Don’t be so sure,” Helen said, topping off Francie’s champagne. “Here, drink up, it’ll make you feel better.”
“Don’t be so sure what?”
“Don’t be so sure Willy’s getting everything she wants. She’s out back there right now, talking to a girl who you don’t talk to unless you’ve got a particular kind of problem, if you see what I mean.”
Interesting. Francie thought that over while she drank. “Pregnant?” she guessed.
“That—or VD. There’s a doctor that girls around here go to—one of the waitresses just had a little problem taken care of.”
“In that case, I hope it’s gonorrhea and twins, and Harry refuses to raise them. And that she gets run over by a truck on the way to the county welfare office.”
Helen laughed. “Sorry,” she said, “but you’re funny, you know that?”
“Really? I don’t think anyone’s ever said that about me before. Well, I’ll return the compliment—you’re very talented.”
“Thanks, doll. It pays the bills—most of the time.”
“How did you get into this line of work?”
“I came here two years ago for my own divorce. Would you believe I used to give lessons to schoolchildren in Modesto? When the checks from my husband stopped showing up before my six weeks were even up, I started picking up a few gigs out of desperation. By the time I got my papers, I’d decided that I liked the night life better than nagging twelve-year-olds to practice.”
“Where else do you play?”
“Anywhere they’ll have me. Clubs, parties sometimes, weddings. Got on at Harrah’s one time, that was a good gig. I’ve done the Prospector, Harold’s . . . they call me if they need me to back up an act at the last minute, which pays pretty well. And then there are the little clubs. They don’t pay squat, but you drink for free.” She smiled. “And sometimes I get lucky and make a friend.”
“It sounds like an exciting life.”
“Oh, I don’t know. There’s a reason I’m playing this dump instead of Vegas—I’m not exactly Liberace, if you catch my drift.”
“Nonsense,” Francie said. “You’re talented. That and hard work will take you far.”
Helen laughed. “Maybe in your world. But there’s plenty of musicians with just enough talent to be dangerous.”
“Listen,” Francie said, an idea coming to her. “Would you consider playing after Vi’s burial? We’re not having a Mass—only a graveside service—and then we’re serving a light lunch at the house I was telling you about, the one she grew up in.”
“I’ve never played a wake,” Helen said dubiously. “I don’t think it’s done.”
“Maybe not, but if people are scandalized by a little piano music, they don’t have to come. Vi would like it, and that’s good enough for me.”
“You knew her well enough to know that? Do you know what songs she liked? Is there even a piano there?”
“There is, as a matter of fact—nothing too fancy, but it seems to be in tune. I mean, I’m no expert, but it sounded good to me. And as far as the music, there’s sheet music in the bench that was hers and really, she loved all kinds of music, I’m sure you can choose what would be best. And yes . . . yes, I believe I knew Vi better than anyone in the world.”
“Well, I tune pianos,” Helen said. “I can come take a look, go over the music, if you’re serious. What day is the service?”
“Tuesday,” Francie said. “It’s three days away. It will start at eleven and then everyone will proceed to the house. Can you come by tomorrow at ten o’clock and take a look?”
“Honey, I’m usually just getting out of bed at ten o’clock,” Helen said, draining her glass and getting up from her barstool. “But for you I’ll make an exception. Leave the address with Shirley and she’ll get it to me. Got to run—if I don’t earn my keep, I’ll have to start buying my own drinks.”
Chapter 27
Virgie
Outside, from the vantage point of a low branch of a carrotwood tree that grew next to the tavern, Virgie watched the piano player begin to play a new set as Mrs. Meeker wrote something on a cocktail napkin and gave it to the bartender.
Virgie knew she should be getting back. Many nights before her mother went to bed, she came into Virgie’s room and sat on the side of her bed. Virgie would put down her book or her diary or her sketchpad and wait—one of these nights, she was sure that her mother would tell her the story she’d been waiting her whole life to hear, the one she said Virgie wasn’t old enough to hear yet. Who her father was . . . and why he left.
Mostly, though, her mother just made small talk about the guests or her chores for the next day, as though Virgie wasn’t even there. But sometimes she’d run her fingers through Virgie’s hair—she’d pretend to be
impatient, saying for the hundredth time that Virgie should stop chewing on the ends, that she’d look so much nicer with a shorter cut, but eventually she’d fall silent and just gently rub Virgie’s back, and Virgie would close her eyes and drift off to sleep.
Virgie was fearful of her punishment if her mother discovered she had snuck out. But even more important, she didn’t want to miss the sweet, peculiar time when her mother behaved like someone else’s mother entirely.
Dear Tabby,
I followed Mrs. M to Gwin’s tonight which Mother says is a rough place the ladies should stay clear of but lots of the ladies go there. W says in most places like in San Francisco ladies don’t go to places like that unless a Man is with them but I think it’s good if they can go wherever they want because that is why they are getting divorces in the first place is because they are tired of getting told what to do all the time is what Mother says. So I asked her did my father tell you what to do and is that why you got a divorce and she got mad and said I knew better than to ask her a question like that.
Oh and W was at Gwin’s too, I climbed the tree on the side so I could see in the window and in the parking lot too. W was right under that tree for a while, she was telling some other Ladies that she can’t wait to go back to a Real city and I don’t know why she doesn’t think Reno is real when I heard on the news we are getting our own television station next year.
Anyway I don’t know why Mrs. M was there, also she was dressed in Blue Jeans and a cowboy shirt for some reason which I wouldn’t think a lady like her would wear. By the time I figured out how to look in the window she was drinking a whole bottle of champagne by herself!! But then the piano player sat down next to her whose name I can’t remember who played here one time at Christmas who could play any song you could think of. I asked her did she know Praise the Lord and Pass the Amyunition which I thought would trick her but she played it two times in two different keys.
Mother told me Mrs. S is helping plan Mrs. C’s funeral that they are having on Tuesday and we are going even though we only met her one time. Why they are having the funeral here Mother says she doesn’t know but Mrs. C’s son called to say he is coming to get her things and when he finds out that ring is gone I think he will be very interested in what Mrs. S is doing living in her room. If he seems Honest and trustworthy I will give him his mother’s ring back but only after I tell him what I saw so he can tell the police because they will believe him because he is an adult.
W said she would pay me three dollars to take a note to Dr. P. I looked and all it said was one word CLAP but when I showed it to Dr. P’s office lady she wrote me a note to give W but she put it in an envelope and sealed it shut so I don’t know what it said, but W gave me the money anyway plus a quarter for being so quick about it. Also Mrs. T got her divorce papers and she is leaving tomorrow and she gave me a dollar too just because she said I made the time go quicker. But I’m glad she’s leaving because she always took all the marmalade and Mother wouldn’t let me put out extra.
$18.72
+ $4.25
= $22.97
Chapter 28
Francie
When Francie got back to her room she took off the shirt and the blue jeans and put them away. She pulled on her nightgown and was just about to get into bed with the novel she had bought for the trip when the phone rang.
“Hello?”
“It’s me, Mother, how are you?”
Nothing could be more welcome than Alice’s dear voice. “Oh, sweetheart, did Daddy tell you?”
“Yes, and I’ve been crying buckets. I can’t believe it! Is it true, did she really . . . I mean, was she that unhappy?”
Francie flinched—this was the same question she had been trying not to ask herself. “The police seem to think it was an accident. You know Vi never learned to swim.”
“But how? How could she just accidentally fall into the river? And Daddy said it was the middle of the night—why on earth would she go outside in the middle of the night? You know how careful she was.”
It was true—ever since the Lindbergh child had been kidnapped and killed, Vi always checked all the doors in the house after the boys left for school and again after dinner to make sure they were locked. It had started when the boys were little, and during their high school years they were constantly locking themselves out of the house and coming to Francie, who had a spare key.
Oh, dear Vi.
“We were at dinner until rather late,” Francie said, twisting the threads of the lie she’d been telling herself in the deepest hours of the night, when she couldn’t stop imagining Vi staring out at the rushing waters and making an unthinkable decision. “And, I do hate to tell you this, sweetheart, but we had been drinking. Too much, I daresay.”
“But Vi never drinks more than a sip or two!”
“Yes, but . . . oh, Alice, I have so much to tell you. You see, we met a young woman on the train, a poor little thing even younger than you, and her husband beat her and she’d run away to get her divorce in Reno with almost nothing but the clothes on her back and her little girl, and you know how Vi is”—another wince as she realized her error, but she wasn’t ready to talk about her in the past tense, not yet—“she invited June to stay in her suite because there was an extra room and she hadn’t anywhere else to go. And it was my idea to have a celebration of sorts the first night, to pick up our spirits, and we went to the Sky Room and it was grand.” But they’d all been pretending, hadn’t they? Forcing cheer for each other’s sakes, finishing the bottle that had failed to lift their heavy hearts.
“Oh, Mother,” Alice said sadly. “That was kind of you, but I can’t imagine any of you felt like celebrating.”
“No, I suppose we didn’t.”
“Mother, don’t cry. At least wait until I get there tomorrow and we can be sad together.”
“You’re coming with Daddy?” A tiny burst of joy broke the surface of Francie’s heart.
“I am . . .” There was something off in Alice’s tone.
“You don’t have to, not for me. If you want to wait and come with Margie and Jimmy, I’ll be fine, I promise. The service won’t be until Tuesday anyway.”
“It’s not that, Mother. I want to be there with you—I want to help. But there’s something I need to tell you. Only, I don’t want to make you feel any worse.”
Francie’s heart shifted in the particular way it always did when Alice was involved, fear balanced by fierce protectiveness. “What’s wrong—are you having trouble with your ankle again?”
“No, no, I’m fine—fit as a fiddle. It’s just . . . oh, Mother, I don’t know how to tell you. Promise you won’t be furious. Daddy didn’t want me to tell you but I thought you should know.”
“Know what?”
“He’s bringing Bill. He’ll stay in the room, don’t worry, no one will know, you won’t have to see him. It’s just that Daddy’s so upset, you should see him, I don’t think he slept at all last night. I don’t think he can bear to be alone right now.”
“I . . . see,” Francie said faintly—but she didn’t. Arthur wouldn’t be alone—he would have her. Like always. That was what they had agreed—that they would remain the best of friends. “I didn’t know that you knew about him.”
Francie couldn’t bear to say the name—she wouldn’t even know it if she hadn’t found that half-written letter in Arthur’s briefcase three years ago, the letter that had forced her to confront a subject they’d long ago agreed never to discuss.
“I know you must wish that you had been the one to tell me,” Alice said, “and I wouldn’t blame you for being angry, but you must forgive me, because it has been awful for me to know about Bill and not be able to say anything to you.”
“How long?”
Alice was silent for a moment before admitting, “Almost a year. It was Daddy’s birthday last year and I went around to the office to surprise him and take him to lunch, but he wasn’t there, even though his car was in the lot, and his sec
retary said he’d gone to get a coffee. But he hadn’t, because on the way to the coffee shop I ran into him with a stranger, coming out of a theater. You know . . . that kind of theater.”
Now it was Francie’s turn to be at a loss for words. That had been her one request of Arthur: never let the children know, at least not until the divorce was well behind them and everyone had grown accustomed to the idea. She wasn’t naïve; she knew they wouldn’t be able to keep it from the kids forever, not with Arthur living with . . . him. But as long as no one knew, Francie had been able to pretend that he didn’t exist.
“Well,” she said. And because she couldn’t think of anything else to say, she said it again. “Well.”
“I know it’s awful for you. It took me forever to get used to the idea. But Bill is very nice,” Alice said. “I just wanted you to know that. And they’re very careful, I promise. Daddy says we can drop Bill off a few blocks from the hotel so no one will even see them together.”
“Alice,” Francie said, recovering herself, “how did you . . . I mean, we’ve never discussed anything of the sort—of course, people are so open about things these days—but it must have been shocking all the same—”
“Mother, it’s all right. Daddy’s a homosexual—you can say it.”
Francie pursed her lips in distaste. “You don’t have to sound so happy about it. And I certainly hope you haven’t told anyone else!”
“I’m not happy about it, Mother, how could I be? In truth I’d rather not think about either of my parents . . . you know, that way. But it’s not like he died or something. And there’s loads of homosexuals in the city these days, so at least no one will make trouble with him if he’s careful. Really, it could be so much worse—they’re sending plainclothes police into gay bars in New York City to arrest men. Can you imagine?”
Francie could, as a matter of fact. She’d spent many anxious hours worried that Arthur would be in the wrong place at the wrong time, that he’d be careless, that he’d be beaten by an angry mob.