Dollface

by Renée Rosen

  My jaw nearly hit the floor. “You own this place? Do you know who’s here tonight? Charlie Chaplin!”

  “Charlie always pays a visit when he’s in town. He just left or else I would have introduced you.”

  “No foolin’? So you really do own this place?”

  “Is that okay with you?” He smiled.

  “I’ll say.” I did a half twirl, taking it all in, making him laugh.

  Thanks to Shep, my martini was promoted to champagne and we spent the rest of the night drinking and dancing. And boy, did he know how to dance.

  When the band went on break, I excused myself and went to the ladies’ lounge to freshen up. Evelyn followed me. It was crowded in there with dozens of women touching up their makeup, their hair, some even painting their fingernails. The air smelled of floral perfumes, nail polish and cigarette smoke.

  “Oh, Vera, wait till you hear what Izzy called me.” The two of us pushed our way toward the mirror. “He said I was ‘a living doll.’ Do you believe that!”

  “No fooling, huh? He called you a living doll, did he?” I twisted up my lipstick and shot her a glance through the mirror. “I’d watch him if I were you.”

  “Aw, Vera, he’s the berries!”

  I smiled. “Like I said, just be careful.” Evelyn was always falling for the wrong kind of guys, probably just to spite her parents. They never would have let her out of the house with a fellow like Izzy.

  She glanced around and lowered her voice. “Too bad he’s a gangster. So is Shep, you know.”

  “What? What are you talking about?”

  She pulled me aside. “Izzy and Shep Green—all the guys here are members of the North Side Gang.”

  I set my lipstick down, thinking about the bankroll Shep had on him the first night I saw him at the Drake. I knew no one legit walked around with that kind of cash on them. “Are you sure?”

  “So help me God.” Evelyn held up her hand and swore herself in. “I overheard some girls here talking about it. Look at what just happened at the Green Mill with Capone. And you know someone’s supplying all the liquor here.”

  “That doesn’t mean anything.” I tried to laugh it off. “Everyone in this town serves liquor. And they’re not all gangsters.” And I told myself not all gangsters were thugs and criminals. Some of them, like Capone, were practically celebrities. Some might argue that gangsters like that were useful people to know as long as you stayed on their good side. So what if Shep rubbed elbows with some bad sorts every now and again. He wasn’t the only one. Especially in Chicago.

  I turned around, patting my hair in place. “Well, one thing’s for sure, Izzy and Shep aren’t your typical boring college boys, now, are they?” I ran a finger across my front teeth to clear away any traces of lipstick. “C’mon, they’re waiting for us down there.” I took one last look in the mirror, thinking, So what if Shep knew Al Capone, he also knew Charlie Chaplin.

  STARSTRUCK

  I was helping Evelyn get ready for a date. It had been a week since she’d met Izzy and already they’d been out twice, including New Year’s Eve. Meanwhile, I hadn’t heard so much as a peep from Shep Green.

  “Want me to ask Izzy about Shep?” She turned her back toward me and lifted her hair, exposing a dozen buttons needing attention. “I could find out if he’s seeing anyone.”

  “No. No.” I worked my way up her buttons, starting at her waist. “Don’t say anything. But if Izzy asks, tell him I have a date tonight.” It wasn’t a complete lie. I had been asked out by one of the junior partners at Schlemmer Weiss & Unger but begged off, thinking a good night’s sleep sounded more appealing than an evening hearing about claims and contracts.

  When I was younger, immersed in romantic novels and still living at home, I couldn’t wait until I was old enough to date. No one told me that all the anticipation, the trying on of outfits and the primping of hair, would be wasted on an evening of awkward silences and clumsy uncertainty. Then, to my mother’s dismay, the boys started coming around—older boys—and I went along happily, expecting so much more than what I got. Oh, how many times had I sat in soda fountains with nice young men, listening to stories of how they’d run varsity track in college or were captain of their debate teams. They’d nervously bounce their leg beneath the table, making the surface of my soda water tremble as they cleared their throat, licked the perspiration from their upper lip and asked if they could hold my hand. Would Rudolph Valentino have asked Gloria Swanson if he could sweep her off her feet? Where was my leading man? That’s what I wondered.

  I fastened the last button on Evelyn’s dress. She’d borrowed it from Barbara Lewis, who in exchange had borrowed one of Evelyn’s hats for a date she had that night with her fiancé. I’d met Monty Perl only once, when he was waiting out front for Barbara. He had a good job, selling restaurant supplies, and was nice-looking with a full, dark mustache. They were getting married that spring, and Barbara was excited about quitting her job, counting the days until she could move out of our dump and into a real home.

  Getting married and settling down—if that was all a girl had to look forward to, then cash me out now. I wanted to get married and have a family someday, but I planned on having a lot more fun and excitement before that happened.

  Evelyn hummed to herself, irrepressibly giddy. “How do I look?” Her warm eyes fluttered at me.

  “I already told you, silly. You’re stunning.” And she was. She wore her hair down that night, letting her light brown curls reach the center of her back, hanging loosely in a series of delicate spirals. “Your eye makeup is perfect and that shade of lipstick is going to drive Izzy crazy.”

  “You really think so?”

  “I know so.”

  Evelyn never realized how attractive she was. I suppose that was what happened when you had four older sisters who’d all been crowned Queen Esther at those blasted tent dances.

  “So, what are you going to do tonight?” Evelyn asked, coating her lips a second time with her beet-red lipstick.

  “This right here.” I patted a stack of fashion magazines at the foot of my bed, all of them back issues that I’d found abandoned on streetcars or discarded in the downstairs parlor. It was my first night off in a week. It wasn’t even seven o’clock and I could barely keep my eyes open.

  After Evelyn left for her date, I helped a couple girls with their makeup, including Helen, who no matter how many times I’d shown her still couldn’t put her lipstick on straight.

  Afterward, I went to the luncheonette around the corner, ordered a bowl of beef stew and ate my way through the breadbasket. I should have brought a book or magazine with me; I felt self-conscious sitting by myself on a Saturday night. Each time I glanced up an older woman at the counter with a wrinkled face and bags beneath her eyes looked at me in sympathy, as if we had something in common. As soon as I finished my stew, I paid the bill and hurried back to the rooming house.

  No one was in the parlor and the halls were all quiet. I tried not to think about the other girls out on dates, dancing and dining. I wished I’d had the money to go to the movie house with the single girls on the floor. Here I was, working myself to exhaustion and still I couldn’t spare an extra nickel for the movies. It didn’t seem fair.

  I got undressed, crawled into bed and leafed through last October’s Vogue. It struck me that when that issue had been on the newsstands, I was still living at my mother’s, dreaming of being on my own and moving downtown. And here I was. I’d done it. But what was next for me? What was the dream now? I wasn’t ready to get married and have children. If I’d wanted that, I could have found a nice, decent fella, just like Barbara Lewis did. I wanted something more.

  As simple as it sounded, I wanted to have fun! I didn’t have much of that growing up. While other children were playing, my mother dragged me into work with her. It wasn’t a place for children and I hated it. When I put up enough of a protest, she hired a housekeeper and left me with the emptiness of a fatherless house. I never felt
safe, never felt protected, always burdened with worries and fears—both real and imagined.

  But I’d broken free from my past and wanted to put it far behind me. Now I wanted just the opposite of what I’d grown up with. I wanted to lead a glamorous life filled with excitement and adventure, with fascinating people and interesting things. I wanted to find a place for myself and know that I belonged somewhere, to someone. I wanted to be important enough to command my own photographs in the society pages. I thought Shep Green might have been the answer, but clearly I was wrong about that.

  I didn’t want to think about him. Or anything else for that matter. It was exhausting, making my mind grind over the same rough patches again and again. I turned to an article about Coco Chanel but didn’t even make it halfway through before I was out.

  • • •

  After another couple days had passed, I had given up on ever seeing Shep Green again, when out of the blue, someone knocked on my room door.

  “Vera? Vera! Telephone call for you. It’s a man!”

  I went downstairs to the parlor, picked up the phone, held the receiver to my chest and took a deep breath before I answered. “Hello?”

  “Is your dance card free Saturday night, Dollface?”

  “Who is this?” I teased, shifting my weight back and forth.

  He laughed. “Who do you want it to be?”

  I caught my reflection in the mirror above the phone. I was smiling. “How are you, Shep?”

  “I’ll be great if you let me take you out Saturday night.”

  Three nights later Shep arrived out front in a fine automobile. He was impeccably dressed and I began doubting Barbara Lewis’s silk two-piece with the pleated skirt, thinking I should have gone for something more formal.

  Shep took me to a wonderful restaurant with crystal chandeliers and gold-trimmed plates and water glasses. The linen napkin in my lap was softer than my bath towel. I’d never dined in such grand style before and tried to keep that to myself, not wanting him to see how unsophisticated I was. I could hear my mother saying, Ach, who needs fancy-schmancy restaurants? Nothing but a waste of money. But oh, how I loved it, even as I fumbled with the oversize menu and later hesitated over the assortment of silverware, waiting to take my cue from the women at neighboring tables.

  “I don’t know about you,” Shep said with a laugh, “but I never know which fork to use. I just start on the outside and work my way in.”

  I wondered if he’d said that because he noticed I was nervous, but it did help me relax. We chatted after placing our orders and once our dinner arrived, he told me how pretty I was and said I had a sweet voice. “Do you sing?” he asked.

  “Poorly.”

  “I doubt that.” He smiled and cut into a glistening rare porterhouse. “I do love the sound of your voice. I could listen to you read me an entire book, cover to cover.”

  “Oh, yeah? What book?”

  He puzzled over it for a moment and changed the subject, telling me about his childhood and mostly about his mother. “She was in a wheelchair from the time I was twelve.”

  “What happened?”

  “A streetcar accident.” He reached for his cigarette case, turning it over in his hand. “I always tried to take care of her. Did the cooking. All the cleaning. Hell, I even carried her to the water closet when she had to go. And we didn’t always make it in time,” he said with a sad smile. “She passed away two years ago.” He stared at the tablecloth. “I go to the cemetery every couple of months. Clear the weeds. I should go more often.” There was another, longer pause. He raised his eyes to mine and gave a slight shrug. “Sometimes I talk to her. Before I leave, I always place a rock on her headstone.”

  As he said that a dull, empty ache settled in my stomach. I realized I didn’t even know where my father’s grave was. I was young when he died and hadn’t really known him, but still, he was my father, and I felt robbed that he’d been taken from me. Just thinking about it made me sad, even a little angry.

  My mood dipped but then brightened again as we lingered at our table, nursing brandies and exchanging stories long after our plates had been cleared.

  When I asked about his father, Shep gave his brandy a swirl. “He worked for the railroads. Put in sixteen hours a day and still couldn’t make ends meet.” He shook his head. “My older brother and I sold newspapers and shined shoes to help out. The two of us shared a bed. Well, I guess you could say it was a bed. We slept on a mattress on the kitchen floor.”

  “You didn’t have a bedroom?”

  “That was our bedroom.” He smiled.

  “Was this here in Chicago?”

  He nodded, set his glass down. “Lovely part of town called Little Hell.”

  “Oh, dear!” I cupped a hand over my mouth. I’d heard horror stories about that part of town.

  “Yep, we lived in a deluxe four-room shanty.”

  “Was it as rough a neighborhood back then as it is now?”

  He looked somewhere over my shoulder. “Let’s just say I saw a lot of holdups and murders.”

  “Murders!”

  He looked back at me and nodded. “I saw people get stabbed and beaten to death.” He opened his cigarette case and offered me one. “So, what about you? Where’d you grow up?”

  “Brighton Park.” I leaned in while he lit my cigarette. As I exhaled, watching the smoke drift away, I thought about the old neighborhood. Ours was the shabbiest house on the street because my mother was too busy working to notice the broken shutters or care for our lawn. I was ashamed of how our house looked, knowing the neighborhood children ran by on their way to the park at the end of our street. While other families sat down to formal dinner tables, my mother and I stood over the kitchen stove eating straight from the pot of stew or the pan of flanken the housekeeper had prepared while my mother was at work.

  “Hey.” Shep leaned forward. “Where’d you just go? What are you thinking about?”

  “Oh, sorry.” I flicked my cigarette and smiled. “It’s just that Brighton Park is worlds away from Little Hell.” I looked at him and flicked my cigarette ash again.

  Shep told me a few more stories and it wasn’t until he said his father had died when he was young that I realized we had anything in common.

  “My father died, too,” I said. “I was four years old. How old were you?” Shep didn’t answer. He just reached over and, without asking permission, held my hand. His skin was soft and warm, and there was something in his touch that made me say the rest. “It was the Black Hand,” I volunteered, surprised to hear those words leave my lips. “They murdered him.”

  Shep squeezed my fingers tighter. Part of me wanted to talk about the very thing that I could never get my mother to talk about. It was also the perfect time to ask Shep about the North Side Gang. But I hesitated, stuck between wanting to ask, but not wanting to know. Before I said anther word, he steered the conversation in a different direction. Soon we were talking about moving pictures and amusement parks.

  When he drove me home, he stopped outside the rooming house and put the car in park, letting the motor softly putter away. “You know I’m crazy about you, Vera. You know that, don’t you?”

  “Oh, yeah,” I said, rolling my eyes, “you’re crazy, all right.”

  “I’m serious. I don’t meet a lot of girls like you.”

  “Like me?”

  “I meet a lot of floozies, showgirls. But you—you’re a nice girl. You’re spunky, a real pip, but you’re nice.”

  “Nice? That’s a terrible thing to say. Nice is dull. I’m not nice.”

  “If you say so. But I’ll tell you something: You’re the kind of girl I could get serious with.”

  And then he kissed me.

  • • •

  Two days later, I called in sick at both my jobs. I wasn’t in any position to sacrifice a day’s pay, but I couldn’t resist the chance to see Shep again. When I was in his company, he made me feel special, like I was somebody and without a care in the world. He
took me ice-skating on the Midway in Washington Park that day. He fastened my skates and held on to me the entire time as I wobbled from side to side.

  I sat out at one point, shivering on a wooden bench, clapping as Shep sped around the rink, weaving in and out of other skaters, natural as could be. I watched him with a glowing sense of pride. He looked good on the ice, dressed in just a heavy wool sweater and gloves, his dark hair held in place with brilliantine while his scarf flapped behind him in the wind. Shaved ice sprayed off his skates each time he made a sharp turn or came to a sudden stop. I wondered if he’d brought me here to impress me, to show off a bit? If so, it was working. I eased back on the bench and waved as he whipped past me again and again.

  Afterward, we sipped hot chocolates before an open fireplace at the adjacent lodge. As we listened to the logs crackling, we made plans for the upcoming weekend.

  That Saturday night, he took me to a Chinese restaurant, where I tasted my first egg rolls, wonton soup, chicken subgum and fried rice. I’d never eaten with chopsticks before, and like most of the other patrons, noodles, clumps of rice and whole vegetables slipped from my grip.

  “Wait, wait, wait!” Shep laughed. “What are you doing over there, huh?”

  “I have no idea.” I made a face. “Help!”

  He laughed some more. “Try holding them like this.” He reached over and placed one stick in my hand. “That’s it. Hold it just like a pencil.”

  While he arranged my fingers, I couldn’t help gazing into his dark eyes and then looking at his mouth. Something came alive inside me at that moment. It hit me and hit me hard: I was falling for Shep Green. He was everything I’d been looking for. He was charming, successful, exciting and charismatic. But more than that, he made me feel good about myself. No one else had ever treated me as if I mattered, as if I deserved to be pampered and looked after. As I watched his lips turn downward in concentration, my excitement clashed with a rush of anxiety. Was he as taken with me as I was with him? God, I hoped so.

  “Now pay attention,” he said, placing the second stick against my ring finger and the crook of my thumb. “Are you watching what I’m doing here?”