Tigers in Red Weather

by Liza Klaussmann

  “Mmm. So, anything new on the wedding front?”

  “I’m sure there is, although no one tells me,” Daisy said, laughing a little too gaily. “I’m so sick of this wedding, I could cry. I’d rather elope, but you know how it is. Mummy and Tyler won’t be stopped. They always have their heads together, conspiring over flowers or music, or some other detail. And if we’re not here, then the two of them are on the phone at all hours of the day and night, plotting.”

  “Well, I suppose they just want it to be beautiful for you.” Helena took a bite of her poached egg. “Although”—she swallowed and shot Daisy a look out of the corner of her eye—“it is unusual for the groom to be so interested in all the trivial comings and goings.”

  “Not very manly, I agree. I keep telling him so. But I suppose I should be flattered that he’s so excited. Anyway, the wedding’s boring. What are you going to do for your birthday?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. I hadn’t really thought that much about it.”

  “It’s too bad Ed can’t be here,” Daisy said, taking a sip of Helena’s juice.

  The gesture shocked her. It was so like Nick, so cavalier, so entitled, and she found that she wanted to slap the glass out of Daisy’s hand. She willed her hands not to shake.

  “Maybe we could go to the salon and have our hair done.”

  “I’m not a doddering old woman, Daisy. I am still capable of making my own hair appointments.” She heard the acid in her own voice.

  “That’s not what I meant,” Daisy said. “Of course you can. I just meant my treat. Just something fun to do.”

  “I’m sorry, dearest. I didn’t sleep very well. Woke up on the wrong side of the bed, I suppose.” Helena sighed. It was very tiresome, all these little cover-ups, but she had to be careful. She had to be cheerful and, above all, well. She straightened her spine. “Perhaps you’re right. The salon might be just what I need.”

  When Daisy went off to call Shelley’s in Vineyard Haven, the sole hairdresser on the Island, Helena turned to her cantaloupe. She knew she was supposed to have eaten it first, like everyone else did, like she had always done, but she decided that she didn’t care. It was her birthday, after all, and this small act of subversion gave her pleasure.

  She pierced one of the squares of melon that Nick had no doubt cut with perfect precision, and bit into it. Its sweetness astonished her. She was reminded of the first time she had eaten melon in California, not long after she had moved there. Avery had taken her to the Cabana Club Café at the Beverly Hills Hotel for breakfast. It was 1945 and Helena had never eaten breakfast out; she didn’t even know people did that. And not by pools, anyway; maybe in some dark, dingy diner if you were a traveling salesman. They had brought her a slice of cantaloupe, or at least she thought it was. Maybe it was honeydew. Either way, when she bit into it, it sparkled—that was the only way she could describe it. She’d never tasted fruit like that, and after all the wartime rationing in the East, she thought she had died and gone to heaven. Or maybe some glamorous version of Mars.

  That’s what Los Angeles had been like those first couple of months. Everything was new and startling and alien. Avery had written to her while she was still in Cambridge to tell her that he’d found a house, but when he picked her up at the train station, he informed her that they would be living in the guesthouse of a famous Hollywood producer. (The Producer. Even after she knew his name, Helena always thought of Bill Fox as the Producer, like a character in a script.)

  Of course, the ceremony at city hall hadn’t been so great, but then again, she had told herself, Avery was very busy and weddings weren’t all they were cracked up to be. She’d worn a cream-colored hat that the shopgirl at Bullock’s had persuaded her to buy. She didn’t know where that hat was now.

  After the justice of the peace had pronounced them wed, Avery had taken her back to the guesthouse on Blue Sky Road. She had been staying at a small hotel, and although the bungalow was small and dark, she was so relieved to be finally settled that she didn’t notice some of its less appealing features. He took her into the bedroom, where, laid out on the bed, there was a strapless dress embroidered with silver thread. The inside was lined with cream-colored satin, with the same satin detailed in a panel on the left hip. Helena laughed out loud. Nick was so proud of her dress with the cherries; if only she could see her now.

  Avery held up the dress and Helena stripped down to her slip, with only a momentary feeling of shyness to be suddenly undressed in front of her new husband, and stepped in. It fit perfectly.

  “How did you know my size?” Helena was practically breathless with pleasure.

  “I’ve taken your measurements,” Avery said, giving her a small wink. “I told them you had the same numbers as Jane Russell, only a little shorter.” He took her hand and spun her around. “Perfect. Now I want to take you out on the town and show you off.”

  He’d taken her to Ciro’s. Helena had never seen anything like it. The outside was plain and drab, just a block of concrete with a neon sign. But inside it was like a jewel box, with its small stage swathed in gold curtains and its huge, tiered chandeliers. She saw Marlene Dietrich with some French actor, and Jimmy Stewart, and a fat, fierce-looking woman in a huge hat, who Avery told her was the gossip columnist Hedda Hopper. She had to keep herself from whispering “Who’s that?” at each table they passed.

  “I want to introduce you to Bill Fox,” Avery said. He didn’t say it at the time, but it was, of course, the Producer who had gotten them the table at Ciro’s.

  “Well, well,” the Producer had said when Avery introduced them. “So this is your Jane Russell.”

  “Didn’t I tell you, Bill?”

  “Yes, you did. Well, well.” He nodded in what seemed to be appreciation.

  Helena felt as beautiful as any woman in there. Not fat, or too pale, or slow-witted. She wasn’t the Helena whose house was always smaller, or whose father was always poorer. She was a blond Jane Russell in a silk-lined gown that fit her like a glove. She was charming.

  “Hello, so nice to meet you,” Helena said, extending her hand. “I’m just thrilled with the house. Thank you so much for letting us live there.”

  “Guesthouse,” the Producer corrected, running the tip of his finger over the half-moons of his mustache. “Yes, well, Avery and I have an old friend in common.”

  “Oh.” Helena looked at Avery, who just smiled back at her.

  “All right, now, you kids enjoy yourselves.” The Producer turned back to his table.

  Avery pulled on Helena’s arm. “We’re in the back.”

  Helena stood there for a moment, unsure whether the conversation was really over. “Oh, and honey,” the Producer said, without turning around.

  “Don’t forget to return that dress to wardrobe by Monday.”

  Daisy was waiting in the car with the motor running when Helena came out to the driveway. Helena looked across the fence at what had once been her own house. The one Nick had taken away from her. Stolen from her, really. A young couple with no children now owned it and had put up a new white picket fence to keep in their dog, an animal with a sweet temper, a mutt, most likely. Its tail was always wagging and its fur was soft and black. She liked that dog.

  Daisy called to her and Helena tore her eyes away from the cottage and walked toward the car. The “Bug,” as Daisy referred to it, was small and cramped, the color of a sunflower. She always felt like she had been twisted into a pretzel after a trip in it.

  Opening the passenger door, she was greeted by the sound of Bobby Kennedy’s unmistakable faux-Brahmin tones coming over the radio.

  “It should be clear by now that the bombing of the north cannot bring an end to the war in the south.”

  “You know, I’ve never understood those Kennedys,” she said as she adjusted herself in the small seat. “With that silly accent. No one has that accent.”

  Daisy turned the dial. Some tinny-sounding music replaced the news program. Helena sighed and Daisy relea
sed the clutch and reversed at a terrifying speed through the back road until they hit North Summer Street. Helena noticed that her niece had kicked her flats off under her seat. She crossed her own legs at her ankles, and then felt like a priss. Why did she feel so old?

  It wasn’t just Daisy. After all, at twenty, she was just a baby, really. She looked across at her niece’s profile, the wind ruffling her short blond hair. It was amazing, she thought, how unaffected Daisy seemed by her mother these days. When she was young, she was always watching Nick. You could almost see how afraid that child was of not being able to live up to her. And now, she was so carefree, so unbothered. In a way she treated Nick as Hughes did, with a sort of indulgence. Then again, Helena reminded herself, she was going to be married. She was young and attractive and she had gotten her man. What was there to worry about? She had mooned after that boy for years, played the little show-off, and then subsequently ignored him until he came around to her way of thinking. Helena chuckled. Daisy was relentless, she had to give her that.

  She wondered if they were having sex. Probably. People seemed to jump in bed with each other at the drop of a hat these days. Of course, when she was Daisy’s age it wasn’t that people weren’t doing it, but they had the good manners to feel ashamed about it. She had waited to go to bed with Avery until they were married, and she hadn’t even been a virgin.

  They hadn’t slept together on their wedding night, because they’d both drunk too much champagne. Frankly, she’d been relieved. Sex with Fen had been an unsettling experience. He seemed so in awe of her body that it left her feeling like a child’s playhouse. And then, of course, the memory of their lovemaking had somehow gotten tangled up with his death, so that by the time she married Avery the whole idea of it was fairly repulsive.

  But going to bed with Avery was completely different. When she finally did, he whispered “My wife, my movie star” the whole time, which made Helena feel strange, but sexy. Afterward, Avery lay tracing the outline of her breast and looking at her with his hooded eyes. Hazel, Helena had remarked, realizing she actually hadn’t known their color before that moment.

  “I like that you’re not a virgin, all that fuss,” he said. “But I did think you’d be a little more experienced.”

  “Oh,” Helena said, at a loss.

  “I want you to talk when we make love.”

  “Oh.”

  Avery laughed. “You don’t have to be ashamed, Helena. Not with me.”

  “I’m not ashamed,” Helena lied.

  He took her face in his hands and his expression became more serious. “Promise me, you’ll never try to hide who you are.”

  Helena kept her eyes turned away, but she felt a glow spreading through her. “People just don’t talk like that where I come from.”

  “I know where you come from,” Avery said. “All those East Coast snobs, like your cousin. But you’re away from all that now. We can be who we want.”

  “They’re not snobs,” Helena said.

  “No, no, you’re right.” He smoothed down her hair. “You just make me want to protect you. I don’t want anyone to make you feel like you’re less than what you are. Do you know what I mean?”

  She did know.

  “I want to show you something,” Avery said, sitting up.

  He guided Helena through the living room to the dark wooden door leading to what he had offhandedly referred to as his office when he’d first given Helena the tour.

  He opened the door to reveal a cramped, square room with only a small window set off to one side to let the light in. Tacked to one wall were two large posters. One showed a man in a trench coat holding a smoking gun, with a redheaded woman in a torn green dress clinging to his leg. PAID IN BLOOD was written in big red block letters across the top, and the tagline read: “The Mob wants him … She needs him … But you can’t hold a man like this!”

  The other was for a picture called Eyes Through the Keyhole (“He sees you when you’re sleeping”). Helena had never heard of either of the pictures, but they sounded like the kind you could see at the double feature.

  On the floor, underneath the posters, were two piles of women’s clothes. The only furniture in the room was a gray metal filing cabinet, a desk covered with stills, and a chair. Stacked against the walls were boxes with what looked like junk spilling out; Helena could make out an empty perfume bottle, a hairbrush and a thumbed copy of Mrs. Parkington.

  “What is all this?” She was particularly disturbed by the hairbrush. Was someone else living here?

  “I want to introduce you to Ruby,” Avery said, spreading his arms wide like a pastor.

  “I’m sorry, who’s Ruby?”

  “She’s my twin,” he said, entering the room and lovingly touching the poster of Paid in Blood. “Don’t worry.” He turned back to Helena, who was rooted in the doorway. “She died.”

  Helena said nothing, just looked at him; she suddenly had no idea who this man was.

  “Listen, I need … no, I want to tell you everything.” He ran his hands through his hair, then looked at her. “Can I?”

  Helena nodded, but she felt afraid.

  “Before I met you, Ruby and I were married. Not married like you and I, at city hall, but married in our souls. She was beautiful and talented, and she taught me how to be free. Look.” He took a photograph off the desk and held it up. A woman with smoky eyes and hair curling around her shoulders lay looking away from the camera. “This is her. This is Ruby.”

  Helena had to admit she was glamorous, lovely, really. She felt a little ill. “What happened to her?”

  “They killed her,” Avery said.

  “Who?” She wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

  “All of them. The world and all its sordid jealousy.” Avery sighed and sat cross-legged on the floor. “They found her body in her automobile, in some alley off Sunset.” He looked at the photograph again. “Someone had strangled her. The cops said it looked like a pickup gone wrong. Called her a prostitute, a whore. They’re the ones who’re scum. Ruby would never have sold herself. Never.”

  Helena felt like she was drunk. Or in a dream when you know you’re in your house, but it isn’t your house. She clutched the filmy robe she had bought for their wedding night closer around her body.

  “Avery, dearest, let’s go back to bed. I’m cold.” She thought that maybe, if they left this awful room and shut the door, they could pretend none of this had ever happened. Go back to the bedroom and rewind the clock.

  Avery’s expression changed. “Poor little mouse, I’ve frightened you.” He got up off the floor and took Helena in his arms. “I know this is a lot to take in, and maybe it sounds crazy. But I need you to trust me.”

  His arms warmed her and she thought of him whispering “My wife, my movie star” as they made love.

  “The thing is, she died while she was making a film. And I’m going to finish it. All I need is to raise some capital to buy it off the studio.” His words were coming out quickly now, almost as if he were reciting something from memory. “I’ll use a double, like they did for Jean Harlow in Saratoga. But she’ll need to really understand Ruby, to know her. That’s what this is for. I’m putting her back together.”

  “Avery …” She pulled out of his embrace.

  “Wait, wait,” he said, clasping her hand and holding it to his chest. “Don’t push me away. Please, Helena.” His eyes looked desperate and so sad. “Haven’t you ever felt alone? Like you didn’t belong to anything or anyone? Like you might go crazy with all the things you wanted?” He shook his head. “Don’t say you haven’t, because I know. I knew it the minute I saw you in that hardware store. All that pain, all that pretending that everything was all right, when you were dead inside. It’s been the same for me. We’re a pair, Helena. We can make it right. We can save each other.”

  Helena looked at him. Yes, she knew what that felt like, all right. Always the nicer one, the poorer one, with nothing of her own. The pretty girl who boys knew they cou
ld fondle without repercussions, too scared and humiliated, too small, to tell on them. Always saying thank you for every little kindness shown to her, even with Fen, as if she didn’t deserve it. She deserved it. She deserved to be happy. And now, with Avery, with her husband, she wouldn’t have to do it alone anymore.

  On the way to Vineyard Haven, Daisy made a quick stop to run an errand and Helena watched as her niece set her parcel carefully in the backseat, adjusting it fussily until she was sure it was in just the right position. Helena saw shades of Hughes in the gesture, his deliberateness. Hughes was nothing if not careful. Where Nick was careless with money, people, anything that wasn’t hers, really, Hughes rounded off every corner he came across. Outwardly, his manner was solicitous and charming, but, she thought, there was something missing underneath. It was as if he had reserved a part of himself somewhere inside, untouched, and kept his own mysterious counsel there. Helena would have felt pity for Nick, if it weren’t so comical. She was chained to a man, the only man, it seemed, who failed to respond to the charms that worked so well on others.

  Still, Helena sympathized with Hughes, even if she didn’t understand him exactly. She understood about keeping one’s cards close to one’s chest. She had learned the hard way that when people know too much, they inevitably want to save you from yourself. One of Nick’s little prescriptions for her, for example, had been the removal of all the pills in the house, to the point where one couldn’t even find an aspirin in case of a headache. It drove Helena crazy. As if by removing the pills she could remove her appetite, as if she had any control over Helena’s desires. Anyway, the pills weren’t the problem. Not anymore, at least.

  At first, Helena had tried to help Avery put order into the collection of Ruby’s things, catalogue them, as it were. But she had been too clumsy, even broken the perfume bottle, and her help had only ended up frustrating him. So, she left him to work alone in the early evenings, when he returned from his job at Sunshine Insurance.

  After a month or so she found her routine. Most mornings, she busied herself with making breakfast, tidying up, doing the marketing, ironing and starching Avery’s shirts, setting her hair. But this only took her to about two o’clock. There was no cooking to be done, because Avery liked to eat out, even at a dumpy diner if there was no money, or just go out for a drink instead. Yet she lived for those evenings with her husband. This was when he seemed to come alive. Sometimes Bill Fox invited them out, and she would watch Avery with pride. Women and men alike seemed to lean toward him when he spoke, the way plants lean toward a sunny window. He always knew the right thing to say, the right compliment or tease, and, just when she would start to think he had forgotten her, he would catch her eye, give her a special smile, let her know that they were in it together.