Mood Indigo

by Ed Ifkovic

  “And what do you think they told me?”

  He laughed, gave a foolish twist of his head. “Unhappy, Kent is, but earning a salary. Everyone I hire thinks they should be starring on Broadway. Or in Hollywood.” He said the last word with a snarl. “The new golden land. Star of stage and screen. But we’re small-time at the Paradise, Miss Ferber. The ragtag end of vaudeville.”

  I waited a moment. “So this is a graveyard.”

  He looked uncomfortable. “Hardly.” He offered a sickly smile. “We did produce a Belinda Ross.”

  “You produced a Belinda Ross, as I understand it.”

  “Look,” he said, lowering his voice, “I live for theater. That’s all I know. All my life. Back to that small town in Connecticut where we sang and danced in the town hall for the yokels. We dreamed of New York, Belinda and me. You know, our mother was an old vaudeville hoofer back at the turn of the century. She used to tell us she danced with Little Egypt at the World’s Fair in Chicago, in fact. In our blood. All of us.” His voice rose. “It’s in my blood. I’ll die in a room like this.”

  “I agree with you, sir. Theater is in my blood.”

  He looked over my shoulder toward the stage. “After the Crash it all got harder.”

  I broke in. “Well, Belinda’s newfound success and Dougie’s change purse seem to help, no?”

  He laughed nervously. “Yes, true. My good fortune. His coins will let me mount a new show, new talent.” He glanced at Millie who’d sidled up to him, tucked her arm into his elbow.

  “With Millie? The others?”

  She answered for him. “We’re a team. New lighting. New stage crew. Everything costs money.”

  Jackson didn’t say anything. Kent wore a thin smile on his face.

  “Dougie is an interesting man,” I began. “I’m afraid his mother, you know, Lady Maud, doesn’t favor your sister or this outpost theater.”

  His face tightened, his voice acid. “You know her?”

  “I had coffee with her earlier today. One of the reasons I decided to come here—to see for myself. Her judgment seemed…severe.”

  His hand flew up to his face, fire in his eyes. “Did she send you?”

  That surprised me. “Why would she do that?”

  “A spy?”

  I breathed in, irritated. “Are you accusing me of being here because of her? To do her bidding?”

  “Dougie has told me of her—her opposition. Her hatred of Belinda. Her distrust of me.”

  “Mr. Roswell, I am nobody’s spy. I came out of a simple curiosity.”

  “A word you used before.” From Millie, looking up at Jackson’s face. “You expect us to believe that?”

  I turned away. “I don’t care what you believe.”

  Jackson wasn’t through. “She’s a vicious, cruel woman.” He started to say something else, but stopped and sucked in his breath.

  “Yes,” I agreed, “a dangerous woman.” I waited a heartbeat. “A woman determined to win.”

  “She wants to destroy Belinda’s career.” Jackson stared into my face.

  I shrugged. “I don’t think she cares about Belinda’s career, sir. What she cares about is Dougie making a fool of himself.”

  His eyes swept the theater, panicked. “We’ve worked too hard for failure.”

  “We?”

  “Yes, Miss Ferber. We. Me and Linda.” He caught his breath. “Though these days her dumb passion has made her—distant.” He deliberated, his brow furled. “Difficult.”

  Millie tightened her grip on his sleeve. “Difficult,” she echoed.

  Both remained quiet, watching me.

  The two exchanged looks. When Jackson looked back at me, he had a scowl on his face. “Good day.”

  Unnerved, I swiveled, walked up the aisle, out of the orchestra. In a final triumphant gesture, I pulled at the heavy door, slammed it shut. Nothing, I knew from years in the theater, sounded more thunderous and final than a solid theater door emphatically slammed. Smiling, I headed across the lobby.

  On the sidewalk, fuming, I watched the workmen wrestle with the glossy sign, but then turned the corner, headed back to Forty-second Street. A brisk walk, but I didn’t want to wait for a taxi to cruise by. Icy wind bit my face, and I turned up the collar of my fur coat.

  Chilled, regretting the walk—a gang of shabby youngsters pointed, remarking on my fur coat—I stopped near a small luncheonette, craving a cup of coffee. A five-and-dime eatery, I realized from the scribbled sign over the doorway, filled with poor folks. An egg, baked beans, a bowl of thin soup, a powdered doughnut, a cup of coffee. All for six cents. A line waiting, shabby collars pulled up around necks. As I stared in, a customer walked out, bundled in a pullover cap and scarf. I smelled burnt coffee, cloying, and the raw hint of grease on a grill. I turned away. But the man stopped in front of me and unwrapped the heavy scarf.

  “Miss Ferber. We meet again.”

  Chauncey White wagged a gloved finger at me.

  I smiled back at him. “Mr. White, fresh from improvisational drama at the Paradise.”

  “Answers?” He waited.

  I stepped back. “I didn’t ask a question.”

  “Of course you did.” He pointed back down the block. “Back there. At the theater.” He was enjoying himself.

  “And what was my question?”

  “You’re wondering when—” He stopped and sang in a rumbling baritone, “Here we go round the merry-go-round. All fall down.”

  “An unhappy ending to this story?”

  In a melancholy tone, slow, hesitant, he said, “A late-night jazz tune wailing through the wee hours. Everybody waiting for the ball to fall.”

  “You’re the prophet of doom, Mr. White.”

  He saluted me, then walked past. “Ma’am, wrap yourself tight in that stunning chinchilla coat. The rest of us are one step away from a small bowl of tomato soup and a chunk of stale bread in that breadline I see every day when I turn onto Eleventh Avenue.”

  Chapter Seven

  After the theater or a movie at the Roxy, anyone flush with cash headed to 21 or El Morocco or the El Fey Club—or, if thirsty, one of the flourishing speakeasies dotting the Manhattan landscape, like Texas Guinan’s 300 Club. Some did both, dancing the night away, tipsy and often draped over chromium bars, scotch highballs in hand. I was not one of those people—a dinner with cocktail at Neysa’s was one thing, but public tomfoolery, I always insisted, was the stuff of lost souls. Noel and I, leaving the theater after enjoying Clifton Webb in Flying Colors and a late-night dinner at the Ritz, careened into Dougie Maddox, lit with whiskey and bumping into parked cars. His face was wreathed in boyish smiles as he spotted the two of us on the sidewalk.

  “Christmas,” he warbled. “Almost Christmas.”

  “Not yet,” I answered. “Santa’s still in his workshop.”

  “Every day is Christmas when you’re in love.”

  Beside me, Noel groaned and mumbled something about Dougie’s having no future as a playwright.

  Dougie was walking with Belinda and Corey Boynton and a young girl I’d not met. Dressed against the cold night in Cossack fur hats and woolen mufflers and bulky cashmere coats, the men struck me as North Pole explorers, though Corey sported a dandyish Windsor knot and Dougie a white silk scarf. Not so the women: Belinda wore a Persian lamb coat cut to accentuate her figure, with a mink cap as a stylish accent. The other woman wore fox furs draped over a red velvet coat. As they approached us, the two women were leaning into each other, confiding.

  “We had a few belts at Texas Guinan’s,” Corey told us.

  “They asked us to leave,” Dougie mumbled, indignant. “Famous people asked to leave.”

  “We were too loud,” Corey added. “Actually this man here—Dougie—was too loud. The rest of us just laughed.”

  Noel faced
Belinda. “You didn’t perform tonight? Your show?”

  A nervous laugh. “I snuck out after my second number.”

  Noel frowned. “You skipped curtain call?” He shot a look at me. “That’s…forbidden.”

  Belinda nodded. “I know, I know. Tommy was furious.” She giggled as Dougie gently poked her. “So unprofessional.”

  Noel tsked. “You don’t do that, Belinda. The audience expects…”

  She stopped moving, her voice sailing over our heads. “You know, I’m tired of people telling me what to do. Tommy’s too…possessive.” She wrapped her arms around her chest and started to move away.

  I caught Noel’s eye. Irritation there, but also a little wonder.

  “Your idea, Dougie?” he said finally.

  Dougie stammered, “I—I—it doesn’t matter.”

  “Everything in the theater matters,” Noel said flatly, turning away. He wasn’t happy. When it came to theater, he played by exacting, inviolable rules.

  Dougie tried to look apologetic, but failed, a sloppy grin on his face. Belinda tucked her arm under his elbow, smiled at him, but said to Noel, a rasp in her voice, “I may have made a mistake.”

  Noel sputtered, his tone very British, “Really?”

  “And you are?” I addressed the young woman at Belinda’s side, her face frozen in a simpleton’s smile.

  Corey Boynton answered for her. “My manners, Miss Ferber. This is Kitty Baker. She was in the chorus of Saturday’s Child at the Corcoran, just closed. She claims she understudied Ruby Keeler in a preview last spring. A new face in Manhattan.” With a tickle in his voice, he added, “Or at least that’s what she told me. She may be a liar.”

  Kitty, anxious to talk, spoke over the last of Corey’s words. “I am not new in town. I’ve been here.” She looked at me, eager. “I have rooms across the hall from Belinda. At the Claremont Residence Hall for Women. When Belinda moved in, we became friends.” She threw a glance at Belinda, a look that struck me as unfriendly. That confounded me.

  Corey finished, slurring his words, “Then she discovered my charms.” He tried to be funny. “I’m still trying to discover her charms.”

  Kitty was short, dark-complexioned, her black hair cascading over her shoulders in marcelled waves, though she topped it with a jaunty veiled pillbox hat, an unsuccessful take on Garbo’s movie look. She had a wide face with small pinpoint eyes, a small Cupid’s-bow mouth between rouged dimples. In a certain light, I thought cruelly, the girl would be considered attractive—coy, maybe even fetching. Unfortunately, the glare from the streetlight was not one of those forgiving lights. Her red velvet evening coat only exaggerated her desire to stand out. I thought of high-school days—the pretty girl with the frumpy girlfriend. Worse, the plain Jane who wanted to be with the pretty girl, but maybe resented her. A harsh judgment, I admit, but she lacked Belinda’s drop-dead come-hither face.

  Corey playfully wrapped his arm around her waist, pulled her in to him, a lover’s hold, and for a second buried his face in her neck. Though she squealed, she kept her eyes on Belinda. But then—so did Corey.

  I nudged Noel. Let’s leave.

  Noel hesitated, his eyes locked on the partying foursome. “Edna, darling, look at these revelers on the ice-cold Manhattan streets.” Then, almost wistfully, he pointed at them. “When I first arrived in Manhattan in 1921, these streets took my breath away. The volcanic movement, the thrill of noise and light.” He waved his hand over the sidewalk. “To be young in Manhattan!”

  I frowned, which everyone ignored. “And that’s supposed to interest me—how?”

  He smiled at me, but Dougie broke in, his face lively. “Miss Ferber, the night is young. Come with us. We are going to see the Christmas lights. There’s a lighted tree at the new Rockefeller Center. It’s—glorious at night.” He was bubbly. “Then we’re going caroling.”

  Late night, my warm apple-green bed, my wood-burning fireplace, a cup of tea, a book by Pearl Buck, perhaps. Or—the frivolous company of drunken partiers singing “O Holy Night” off-key, lips blue from the cold.

  I agreed reluctantly, though I shot Noel a cautionary look. He did his best to ignore my cranky disposition, and reluctantly I found myself returning his engaging smile. He gallantly grasped my elbow as we moved toward Rockefeller Center.

  Bizarrely, as we moved, Dougie suddenly seemed out of sorts, dancing around us, a nervous grin appearing then disappearing on his face. Corey watched him closely, puzzled, at one point whispering, “You all right, Dougie?”

  Dougie didn’t answer. Instead he draped a possessive arm around Belinda’s shoulder, nuzzled his face into her neck, and mumbled something I didn’t catch. Surprised, she looked into his face, tapped his lips with her fingertip, and gave him a quick peck on the cheek. But the minute she pulled away, gossiping with Kitty, his body got rigid, a melancholic look sweeping his features. A chameleon, I thought—the man whose emotions flashed pell-mell from one unstable extreme to the other. Perhaps sheltered under his mother’s forbidding wing, shielded by his dead father’s monomaniacal thirst for money, the thirty-five-year-old Dougie, suddenly playing in the quixotic courts of love, had no idea what to do—what not to do. How do you teach a spoiled little boy to play nice?

  Midnight—I heard the bells at St. Patrick’s toll the hour—and Rockefeller Center hummed and sang. Bundled-up crowds circled the magnificent tree, a wash of brilliant light against a snow-white sky. Snow flurries circled our heads, and the biting wind from the East River stung. Tinny Christmas music wafted from an unseen speaker. Out-of-town tourists—and, I supposed, in-town folks, as well—stood near the tree while others snapped pictures with their boxy Kodaks. Suddenly we were all very happy.

  Even dour me, hungry for bed.

  Belinda was in a cheerful mood as she linked arms with Dougie, who beamed.

  Kitty caught my attention because she stopped walking, her arms thrust out, a mischievous grin on her face.

  “What?” I asked.

  She sidled up to the couple. “Look.” She pointed up at the towering skyscrapers etched against the night sky. The glistening Chrysler Building with its Deco brilliance. The distant top of the Empire State Building. All around us buildings were aiming for the heavens, punching their glass-and-steel way into the starlit night. “Look,” she insisted, “isn’t that the new Benton skyscraper?”

  The wrong thing to say, obviously. Dougie, stepping back, dropped Belinda’s arm, glowered. Not at Kitty, who wouldn’t stop yammering about city life up in the clouds—but at Belinda.

  Corey nudged Kitty, adding, “Lord Almighty, Wallace Benton’s white elephant in a time of Depression. Can you believe it? Floor after floor of offices no one will ever rent. Like the Empire State Building. Mostly empty.” A mysterious smile. “But a penthouse on the top floor. A lair for mistresses.”

  Belinda ignored them, waving into the sky. “I think it’s magnificent.”

  “Piles of money,” Corey went on. “I can only imagine.” His voice got sad. “Not everyone went bust in ’29.”

  “He has more than enough to spare,” Belinda added.

  “Yeah,” Dougie seethed, twisting his head so that his face was inches from hers, “he can send you more flowers.”

  Belinda sighed but touched his cheek. “Oh, Dougie, it’s nothing. A stage-door admirer. I have so many.” She stepped back from him.

  He spoke through clenched teeth. “And an invitation to supper?”

  Her words clipped. “Which I refused.”

  Dougie stamped his foot. “For now.”

  “What does that mean?” She glared at him as she took another step away. “Not now, Dougie, okay?” For a second she shut her eyes.

  “Money, Belinda.”

  She whispered, annoyed, “I’m with you, aren’t I?” She reached out to touch his cheek but he backed off.

  Corey, still a
little tipsy, winked playfully. “For now.” He danced a two-step, exaggerated. “For now,” he repeated, singing out the words, enjoying himself.

  “What the hell does that mean?” Dougie flared at his friend.

  Corey’s eyes popped. He seemed surprised that he’d verbalized his thoughts, stammering, “I only mean—I meant…” He pulled back. “I don’t know what I mean. Sorry, Dougie.”

  Kitty had been silent, though she’d kept her eyes on Belinda. Now she said in a cool, even voice, “When you’re famous and beautiful, rich men fantasize about you.”

  She stopped, alarmed at Dougie’s face. His lips in a tight line, his eyes darkening, he stared into Belinda’s face. “Others?”

  Belinda was perplexed at the direction of the squabble. “I don’t know what you mean. I don’t even care to know what everyone’s talking about, for God’s sake.” Hastily, to Kitty she said, “You talk too much.”

  Kitty, flippant, replied, “Or maybe too little.”

  Dougie looked into my face, helpless, jaw slack, as though he wanted me to say something.

  Cold, I shivered. “What, Dougie?”

  But Kitty was in a hurry to say something. “Tell them about Cyrus Meerdom.” A purposely explosive sentence. “C’mon, Belinda.”

  Everyone froze. Belinda’s face closed up, and Corey shook his head. “Christ, Kitty. You bring that up?”

  “I’m only talking.” Kitty’s eyes danced.

  Jealous, I thought, this troublemaker.

  Corey hissed at her, “Vengeance is mine, sayeth the broad.” He grinned. “Didn’t Damon Runyon say that?”

  Kitty shot him a venomous look. “I’m just talking, see? Just that we see him around. Me and Belinda. He’s—like everywhere. It’s unnerving. In that long town car with a driver. Parked in front of the apartment. When I was with Belinda for a dress fitting at Saks. Lord, we’re having an egg cream at Rudley’s and we turn around and he’s there. You know how you gotta step down into that restaurant? He appears—a table back by the kitchen. Sitting in a corner with a friend…”

  “Buzzy Collins,” Corey added.

  “Whoever.” Kitty’s voice trembled. “All I know is that he couldn’t take his eyes off Belinda.” Her voice broke at the end. “It…scared me.”