“What are we celebrating tonight?” Bella asked. Kathy noted she was wearing her diamond necklace, no doubt at Julius’s orders.
“Roz wants us here.” Julius glanced toward the entrance. “She and the publicity man for the play are working on a column item. Why didn’t you wear your diamond and sapphire necklace, Kathy?”
“I loaned it to Alice tonight,” she murmured.
For a moment Julius stared at her in shock, then broke into laughter.
“You mean, to wear to the Firemen’s Ball.”
“Here comes Roz,” Phil whispered. “Smile pretty, ladies.”
Even now—and she was sure the affair between Roz and Phil was over—Kathy tensed in Roz Masters’ presence. Who in tomorrow night’s play had replaced Roz?
Kathy made a pretense of being involved in the opening night excitement. Phil and his father saw the Kohn entourage—Brenda and Gail and their husbands—to their seats, then disappeared until a moment before curtain time. The instant Carol made her entrance—even before she had delivered her five lines—Kathy knew this was Phil’s latest fling.
By the end of the second act Kathy was sure the play would close within a week, though the opening-night audience circulating in the lobby between the first and second act had made the expected laudatory pronouncements. The cast was brought back for several curtain calls, but this was an audience of friends, Kathy realized.
After the show, Julius herded his party from the theater to Sardi’s, where Phil had made reservations in the wood-paneled Belasco Room, a favorite site for more intimate theater wakes.
“We’ll wait for the reviews,” Julius said firmly, though Kathy suspected even he realized this investment would be a tax write-off.
Gail and Brenda dissected the clothes worn by the actresses in the company. Bella said bluntly that the play was dull and that the critics would probably rip it to shreds.
“They should have brought in a Hollywood star,” Julius complained. “That’s always good box-office.”
“The director wanted John Garfield,” Phil told him.
“Garfield’s a bloody Commie,” Julius scoffed. “The whole world knows that.”
“Because Counterattack and books like Red Channels say so?” Kathy challenged.
“We have to protect ourselves against those creeps,” Julius blustered, color flooding his face. “They’re out to destroy the world.”
“During the Depression a lot of loyal Americans were drawn into the Communist Party.” Kathy ignored Bella’s pantomimed plea to redirect the conversation. It infuriated Julius to be contradicted by anyone in the family, particularly a woman. “Look at all the Americans who fought with the Loyalists in Spain.” Frank’s father, Kathy recalled, had driven an ambulance with the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. “But they got out.”
“A bunch of schmucks,” Julius scoffed.
“Look, this is not a period to make waves.” Phil shot a warning glance at Kathy.
“Just to ruin careers and lives,” Kathy said sweetly.
“Here comes the cast.” Bella was intent on diverting the table talk into less controversial areas. “This must be a nerve-wracking time for them.”
The two Kohn daughters and their husbands remained for the usual lavish spread of lasagna, seafood Newburgh, salads, macédoine of fruit, and French pastries and then took off for Greenwich. Phil and Julius had made it clear they meant to remain until the early morning reviews came through. The company press agent put on an Academy Award performance, but most of those present knew the reviews would be bad.
Kathy was aware of the secret exchanges between Phil and Carol Graham, who sat at the next table with others in the cast. She heard Carol’s squeal of delight that the reviewers—when at last the newspapers were brought into the Belasco Room—had singled her out as “a promising young actress,” though the reviews in general were so bad that Phil said closing notices would be posted the following day.
As the Kohn party prepared to leave, Kathy saw Phil contrive to talk for a moment with Carol Graham. His drinking tonight had made him careless. She heard Carol’s response to an obviously amorous question.
“Phil, I can’t,” Carol trilled. “I’m having supper tomorrow night with this man I met who’s sure he can get me into Actors Studio, and you know how much that means to me!”
Who would replace Carol Graham, Kathy asked herself. Why did it still hurt, when she knew her marriage was dead? Pride, she taunted herself. Did people around Seventh Avenue talk about Phil the way they talked about his father?
Chapter 18
KATHY WAS DELIGHTED WHEN Marge wrote in March that she would be in New York in April—“with terrific news.” She put aside the letter, inspected the clock, and reached for the telephone. With the difference in time it was almost 7 A.M. in San Francisco. Feeling deliriously close to Marge, she phoned, suspecting she would replace Marge’s alarm clock this morning.
“Hello—” Marge sounded vaguely awake.
“I just got your letter,” Kathy said. “How do you expect me to wait until April for your ‘terrific news’?”
“Kathy! It isn’t all really set yet, which is why I stalled. But it looks like I’m going to open my own shop!”
“Here in New York?” Kathy asked hopefully.
“In San Francisco,” Marge apologized. “I met this rich elderly couple who offered to back me. I gather they’ve got more money than Fort Knox, and they like to see young ‘entrepreneurs’—to use his word—move up in the world. His wife’s a steady customer in the shop where I’m working.”
“Marge, that’s wonderful! That means you’ll be selling some of your own designs?”
“I’m sure as hell going to try. Anyhow, I’ll be in for a week, staying with Mom in Brooklyn and listening to her complain because I’m not married and not providing her with grandchildren. But I’ll be in the city every day. We’ll have a ball!”
Kathy waited restlessly for Marge to arrive. She was eager to talk over her own plans to move into the business world. One year from this coming June, she thought with heady anticipation, Jesse would be six. That September he would start first grade. Emancipation day for her.
Kathy arranged a small dinner party for Marge on her second evening in New York. That same morning Phil phoned from the office to say he was flying to Palm Beach early in the afternoon to discuss a lease on a shop on Worth Avenue.
“I’ll be down there just for three days. Sorry to mess up your seating arrangements tonight,” he apologized. “I’ll bring you something pretty from Palm Beach.”
“I don’t worry about seating arrangements. It’s not Noah’s Ark,” Kathy said casually. In a way it would be a relief not to have Phil there. The guests were all her friends. Phil knew Rhoda and Frank, of course, but they had nothing in common. “Shall I pack a bag for you?”
“I’ll be home in twenty minutes to pack. I suppose Jesse is at nursery school?”
“Yes.”
“Then tell him I’ll bring him a present from Palm Beach.”
To Phil a present made up for missed storytelling sessions, which were frequent. Probably he’d have his secretary pick up something at F.A.O. Schwarz on her lunch hour, and he’d present it as a souvenir from Palm Beach.
Marge arrived early, as planned, kicked off her shoes and settled on the sofa for ebullient conversation.
“I love Mom, but she does drive me nuts,” Marge said good-humoredly. “You know the routine. Here I am twenty-eight years old and still single. She keeps telling me how I have to go out and join things—political clubs are her main shtick now. I should join the Democratic Club and meet young lawyers on the way up. I should take tennis lessons because she thinks I look good in tennis shorts. Maybe,” Marge sighed, “I’d look good in shorts if I dumped the fifteen pounds I’ve picked up from eating sourdough bread lathered with butter.”
“Tell me about the shop,” Kathy ordered. “I’m dying to know every little detail.”
When Jesse arrived, h
e was instantly the focus of their attention.
“I tell you, if anything could persuade me that marriage is great, it would be Jesse. He’s such a love.”
“He’s what keeps me with Phil,” Kathy admitted. “I want him to have the best of everything.”
Then the others arrived, and the apartment seemed to radiate high spirits. Here the conversation jumped from subject to subject, erupting regularly into good-humored argument. They lingered around the dinner table talking about the coming Republican and Democratic conventions.
“As much as I’d love to see Stevenson run for president, I think he’d be nuts to do it,” Frank declared. “Who the hell can win against Eisenhower?”
They dissected the question of who was winning in Korea and talked with anguish about the red-baiting that was destroying so many of the country’s creative talents. Kathy gloried in the stimulation that seemed to ricochet about the apartment. This was her real life—the hours spent among old friends with something on their minds besides the fur industry and making money. This and the hours in Borough Park, with Mom and Dad and Aunt Sophie.
Reluctantly the guests began to leave.
“Tomorrow’s a workday,” Rhoda reminded while Frank went to bring their coats from Kathy’s bedroom. She and Frank were the last to leave. “But it’s been such fun.”
“Phil’s flying to Denver in ten days for business,” Kathy remembered. “He’ll be away for the weekend. Why don’t you and Frank go up to the Greenwich house with me that Friday evening? We can come back into town sometime Sunday.”
“I don’t think it’ll be a good idea,” Rhoda said uneasily.
“Why not?” Kathy was puzzled.
“Frank and I are becoming active in a new group that’s fighting against the trapping of wild animals by fur traders.”
“You?” Kathy broke into laughter. “Rhoda, you’re the one who joined Marge in poking fun at me when I’d say I wasn’t comfortable walking around with furs that used to be on some wild animals’ backs. Marge said—and you agreed with her—‘Let Julius Kohn present you with a gorgeous mink, and you’ll change your mind.’”
“Frank converted me,” Rhoda admitted. “He read me the most heartbreaking plea—written back in the last century by Minnie Madden Fiske—for women to stop wearing furs because of the pain inflicted by the traps. For what? So we can prance around in those poor little animals’ skins.”
“Oh, you’re on the soapbox,” Frank chuckled as he approached them with Rhoda’s coat. “Nothing like a woman who’s been converted to spread the word.”
“I’ve never felt comfortable being a clotheshorse for Julius Kohn furs.” Kathy’s smile was rueful. “I keep telling myself, I don’t own a fur coat or jacket or cape or whatever—”
“No mink-lined bathrobe or car robe?” Frank twitted.
“That has nothing to do with my invitation to come up to the house with me for the weekend,” Kathy said resolutely. “Phil won’t be there. And if he was, we’d just avoid discussing the subject. Like I never fight with him or his father about the House Un-American Activities Committee and Joe McCarthy. They have their opinions, and I have mine. I always warn my father not to discuss politics with Phil. On those rare occasions when they spend more than two minutes together,” she added derisively.
“Then we’d love to go up with you,” Rhoda said. “Okay, Frank?”
“Sure, I’d love to slum for a weekend in Greenwich,” Frank joked, and kissed her. “Take care, Kathy.”
Again, the Kohn entourage prepared to settle at the Southampton house for the summer. Kathy promised herself she would go into Manhattan twice a week for summer classes, and she’d take advantage of this escape to visit in Borough Park and to meet Rhoda for lunch. Gail and Brenda were heading for Bar Harbor for the month of July, once the little girls were off to camp; and she anticipated a quiet time alone with Bella and Jesse.
At dinner at Kathy and Phil’s apartment shortly before the exodus to the Hamptons, Julius announced that he and Phil had just scheduled a business trip to London and Paris at the end of July.
“Good,” Bella said casually. “Kathy and I will go with you.”
“What do you mean, you’ll go with us?” Julius stared belligerently at her.
“Kathy and I will accompany our husbands to Paris. I think the words are self-explanatory.” Bella refused to be ruffled. Kathy tensed, dreading another ugly battle between them.
“We’ll talk about it later.” Julius turned to Phil. “Did you bring those reports from the real estate people in Atlanta?” Kathy knew an Atlanta store was under consideration.
“Yeah. We can go over them after dinner.”
At intervals Bella alluded to the forthcoming European jaunt. Julius was sullen but refrained from further argument. By the time the chocolate mousse was served he had capitulated.
“You’ll be on your own most of the time,” Julius warned. “We’ve got some difficult contracts to iron out in London and Paris. It’ll be business meetings day and night.”
“Fine,” Bella accepted. “Kathy and I will be able to entertain ourselves.”
“Bella, I can’t leave Jesse,” Kathy reminded anxiously when the men went off to the den, presumably to discuss Atlanta real estate, though she and Bella immediately heard the raucous sounds of the night baseball game being shown on local television.
“You can, but you won’t,” Bella corrected lovingly. “Jesse will come along with us. Alice adores traveling with you. We’ll be in Paris in time for the shows. We’ll buy like crazy.” Bella’s eyes glinted with satisfaction. Kathy knew that Bella had just discovered her husband’s long-time affair with his bookkeeper, which probably motivated his capitulation on the London-Paris trip, she surmised. “Julius will scream when he sees the bills. Phil will scream. But somehow, they’ll manage to write them off as business expenses. The rich find ways not to pay taxes, Kathy.”
After the ball game the two men joined Kathy and Bella in the living room for cups of espresso. Julius seemed more relaxed now. He figured Bella would not rock the boat—or bed—that he shared with his bookkeeper, Kathy assumed. Ever anxious to have Phil understand who was boss, Julius rejected his son’s suggestion that they stay at the Dorchester in London.
“We’ll stay at the Savoy,” he announced. “Their bathtubs are six feet long.”
“Julius, you’re five feet four,” Bella said drily. “Be careful you don’t drown.”
“During World War II General Eisenhower sent his laundry to the Savoy,” Julius told them. “It went there in special aluminum containers.”
“Make it the Ritz in Paris,” Phil urged. “Kathy and I stayed there last time. It was great.”
“Okay,” Julius conceded. “In Paris we stay at the Ritz.”
Would there be a reunion in Paris with David, Kathy wondered wistfully. It was a short flight from Berlin to Paris. Bella would never set foot on German soil, she’d been eloquent about that on several occasions. “How could I go to a country where six million Jews were murdered?” But maybe Bella would persuade David to join them in Paris for a day.
Though Kathy had slept little on the overseas flight, she was delighted when Bella suggested on their arrival at the Savoy that the two of them shower, change into comfortable “tourist clothes” and begin to see London.
“Julius and Phil will conk out for a couple of hours’ sleep, then start their round of appointments. We may see them for dinner,” Bella said with mild sarcasm. “Do you know, Kathy, I haven’t been in London for twenty-four years. Oh, I’ve been to Paris a dozen times in that period,” she conceded. “Going to Paris means spending a fortune on new dresses, and driving Julius into a frenzy. My mother—may she rest in peace—used to call my troubles with Julius ‘silken troubles.’ She couldn’t understand why I was unable to sit back and enjoy all the things the Kohn money could buy for me. But in time I learned,” she said with a conviction Kathy didn’t entirely believe. “Do you know how many women in this wo
rld would sell their souls to be in our places?”
“I stay with Phil for Jesse’s sake.” Kathy was always candid with Bella. “If the day ever comes when I think it’s not good for Jesse, I’ll walk out.”
“I used to tell myself that once the children were grown, I’d sue Julius for a divorce and demand a big cash settlement plus fancy alimony. But by then I was too lazy to move out into a life of my own. Or maybe too afraid,” she acknowledged. “So I look the other way when I see Julius making an old fool of himself—and I shop. That’s survival for a lot of women in this world, Kathy. You might say,” Bella chuckled, “that we help keep the economy healthy.”
“I’ve made a list of places we must see.” Enthusiasm began to well in Kathy. “We’re only going to be here five days, so let’s don’t waste a minute.”
The next four days sped past. Kathy and Bella, with Jesse and Alice, visited the Tower of London. They were enthralled by the display of the Crown Jewels and by their climb up the Bloody Tower. Like other American tourists, they dallied at Westminster Abbey, St. Paul’s Cathedral, Trafalgar Square, the British Museum, the National Gallery. They were at Buckingham Palace to witness the Changing of the Guard.
Their first three evenings in London—exhausted from the miles they’d walked during the day—they dined with Jesse and Alice in the comfort of Bella and Julius’s suite. Both men dined with business associates, they claimed. Bella was dubious but philosophical. The fourth night Bella decreed that the men arrive at the Savoy in time to escort them to dinner. They dined in the elegant Main Restaurant, a jewel of the hotel and reached via an imposing double staircase.
Over dinner, which included fresh Beluga caviar, Bella suggested that Julius call David in Berlin and ask him to join them in Paris for a day or two.
“You’ve got nothing to do. You call David,” Julius ordered. “Tell him we’ll arrange for a room for him at the Ritz. I don’t think David’s bankroll is up to that.” His chuckle held a condescending note that infuriated Kathy.
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