The Night She Won Miss America
Page 9
“A bit, I suppose,” he says, his eyes again focused on the water. “I come off like a chump.”
“Hey, look at me,” she says, grabbing his arms. “Talk to me. What’s really eating you about this? I mean, it was a beautiful song. You should be proud people were talking about it.”
“It’s not that.”
“Then what?”
“You must know how I feel about you.”
“I think I’m beginning to. The song helped.”
He laughs. “The thing is . . . I . . . I don’t want to be in gossip columns. I don’t want to be known as ‘Mr. Miss America.’ ”
“Well, then you’re in luck. I’m not Miss America.”
“But you might be. Your entire life could be turned upside down by tomorrow night.”
“You’re being silly. Girls like me are just the filler, the background for the real contestants, the girls like Mary Barbara Adair. You’re worrying about nothing. I’m not going to win. I’m not.”
“You can’t be certain of that. I just need you to understand that if you do win, I can’t . . . It pains me to say this out loud. But we can’t be together, Betty. You can’t be my girl if you win. It’d be too much for me.”
And here she’d thought it was something serious. “You know what the good news is?” she asks.
He pulls her back into his arms. “Sure. Tell me: what’s the good news?”
“You just confessed you want me to be your girl.”
“You are my girl. I thought you already knew that.”
“Not out loud.”
“I sang you a song about it in front of a roomful of people! A song I wrote! How romantic does a guy have to get?” His smile is fulsome, brilliant. He’s back.
“Sing it to me again.”
“Right here?”
“Right here.”
And so he does.
༶
By the time the Cadillac is rolling back up Atlantic Avenue, it is past two thirty. Betty’s family is no doubt already at the hotel, wondering where she is, and she admonishes herself for not leaving them a note at the front desk. She has promised Ricky a walk on the Boardwalk this afternoon, before the final preliminary tonight, and now, with this unexpected stop she is about to make, that is out of the question. She is disappointing everyone. It feels strange and oddly liberating.
She is the girl who lives to please, now solely focused on her own pleasures.
The car pulls over at the corner of Mediterranean and Virginia Avenues, and Betty climbs out, asks Honor McAllister’s driver to wait. She won’t be long.
Minutes later she is striding down an aisle of desks in the hectic newsroom of the Atlantic City Press, coming to a stop at his. His shirtsleeves are rolled up, and his hair flops into his eyes. He is hunched over his typewriter, fiddling with the ribbon, which appears stuck. A half-written story peeks out from the top of the roller, a carbon underneath. She wonders if she’s in this one, too. She can feel the eyes of the other reporters on her, catches the odd word of a whispered comment here and there. She suspects she is the first Miss America contestant to ever barge into the paper like this, and it thrills her. She likes this side of herself, this hidden layer she has now discovered, bold and brassy, like Kitty Foyle.
Eddie Tate startles. “Betty! My. Hello. This is a . . . surprise,” he stammers, banging his knee against the desk as he awkwardly rises from his swivel chair, attempting to smooth back his hair in the process. He reaches for his coat on the back of the chair, wriggles into it as he halfheartedly organizes the messy papers all over his desk, smudging them with the messy typewriter ribbon ink now on his fingers. “What . . . what can I do for you? May I offer you a cup of coffee?”
His fumbling nerves only feed her confidence. She has a memory of her father at the dinner table, quoting the Roman historian Titus Livius Patavinus—he is always tossing out obscure quotes, because they make him appear well-read and, more important, leave him a device for issuing sage pronouncements: “There is always more spirit in attack than in defense.”
“No thank you,” Betty says, scanning around for a chair. “May I sit for a moment?”
“Allow me,” says a voice from the left, wheeling another chair in. A reporter, considerably more disheveled, with a long, rubbery face and a wide nose that is two sizes too large for it. “Chick Kaisinger, at your service.”
“Yeah, okay, thanks, Chick. I’ll take it from here,” Eddie says.
“I bet you will,” Chick says, still leering at Betty as he moseys back to his desk.
Examining his flushed face, Betty cannot help but wonder whether Eddie is always jumpy or whether it is she who makes him so. She suspects the former but hopes the latter. Maybe her father is right: it’s the effect of the surprise attack. She only knows that Eddie now appears a far different young man than the cocky reporter on the Boardwalk and in the hotel dining room yesterday morning. He looks as if he’s about to jump out of his skin.
“So, I don’t expect this is a social call. What can I do for you, Miss Welch?”
She crosses her legs, studies him. “I’m here to ask if I have done anything to offend you. And to apologize if I have.”
For a moment he says nothing, just stares at her with those icy blue eyes. Every time she sees him, he appears more handsome, and it bothers her that she notices. He is not Griff, of course. But he has . . . something. The blond hair, the freckles, the tiny oval glasses. He’s the cute smart boy whose layers you want to peel back, see what’s lying underneath.
She blushes at her own thoughts. What has gotten into her today?
“What would make you feel that you’ve done something like that?” he says finally.
“I don’t know. But you seem to be focused on me more than the other girls competing. I confess I find it all rather curious.”
“I’ve mentioned you in one story, Betty. Along with plenty of the other girls.”
“Two. You’re not counting the item about the unnamed boy serenading the girl at the Brighton the other night.”
The click-clack of myriad typewriters, a tinny symphony when Betty first walked onto the newsroom floor, has been reduced to a few random strokes here and there; there is almost a stillness about the place, as if everyone is trying to eavesdrop without appearing to do so. Betty can hear the steady hum of the teletype, spewing its curling ribbon of bulletins somewhere nearby. Reporters shuffle papers, walk back and forth, but it’s clear her visit is the day’s biggest headline.
“I don’t write the blind items,” Eddie says, frowning. His jitters seem to have been vanquished by annoyance. “If you feel you’ve been treated unfairly, you can always write a letter to the editor. I’d be glad to pass it on.”
“Why did you call Griffin McAllister?” The sentence comes out brusquely, with an edge she did not intend.
He cocks his head, assessing her. “It’s a sad day when a sugar daddy has to send his dame over to do his dirty work,” he says. “If your precious Griff is too scared to talk to a reporter, he doesn’t have to. But don’t flatter yourself, sweetheart. It’s Pageant Week. This is the Atlantic City Press. We cover everything and everybody to do with it, including the mooks who squire you girls around. I called a bunch of guys.”
“Really? Who else?”
Eddie stands up, staring down at her. “I don’t have to explain how I do my job to you.”
“Maybe what you do need to explain is why you’re so interested in me.”
He says nothing for several seconds. His face is hard, his jaw clenched. But the eyes—soft, yearning—expose him. For several more seconds, they say nothing, simply stare at each other, exchanging wordless acknowledgment.
Betty slowly stands. “I see. Griff has been unwell lately. He is under a tremendous amount of strain due to his responsibilities in his family’s business. I would appreciate your consideration in not bothering him further. I’d consider it a personal favor.”
“I got your message, Miss Welch. Now if you’ll
excuse me, I’m on deadline.”
“I thank you for your time, Mr. Tate. I’m sure I’ll be seeing you tonight at the last of the preliminaries?”
He chuckles briefly and artificially, a laugh laced with a noticeable trace of sarcasm. “Wouldn’t miss it.”
Nine
“Did you date at all in high school?” Ciji asks as she plucks out the last of her pin curls. She begins to separate sections of her hair by hand. “Because it sounds to me like you have absolutely no idea how to handle men.” She bends over, shakes out her locks while coating them in a cyclone of mist.
“What is that?” Betty asks, waving her hands in front of her face.
“The future of beauty, honey,” Ciji says, straightening up and flipping her hair back. She picks up a hairbrush, begins softening the curls. “A miracle. Brand-new. It’s this sticky kind of spray that holds your hair in place for hours. My secret weapon for winning this pageant.”
“It smells terrible.”
“It doesn’t matter how it smells, dearie. The judges aren’t going to smell you. It’s all about how it makes you look.”
They need to be back at Convention Hall in less than two hours. Betty managed to get back in time to spend the afternoon with her family, walking the Boardwalk—Ricky displeased it was not just the two of them, because with just the two of them his odds of getting unfettered access to sweets is good—and listening to everything going on back in Delaware that she didn’t care about when she was there and cares even less about now. Ricky’s wrist is in a bandage, but his injury has not stopped him from being as annoying as possible every minute. Her father has lectured her for fifteen minutes about not letting all of this go to her head; her mother has filled in the rest of the time asking questions about everything, in detail. Betty has edited her itinerary of the past week, heavily. Still, she has to admit: she’s glad they are here. They are so happy, so proud. She has never been the showy one in the family, the one being bragged about or admired or drawing attention. It feels nice. More than that, actually. It feels . . . vindicating.
Betty drops down onto her bed. She should be checking her dress—so many dresses!—making sure that it is pressed and ready for her harp solo tonight, but she cannot do it, because if she does she must again think about playing in front of all of those people, and the less she thinks about that the better. She looks over at Ciji, now expertly shaping her bangs in a curving S shape, sliding a bobby pin behind her left ear to pull one side back. She wishes she could be more carefree. She remembers standing in her bedroom at home just last week, packing and talking to Patsy, feeling so indifferent and cavalier. And then Griff strutted across the ballroom, looking like a magazine advertisement.
“Your hair looks nice,” Betty says.
“Thank you,” Ciji says, brushing the ends and shaping them. “I’m going for Linda Darnell in A Letter to Three Wives.”
“You want the judges to see a girl whose husband just ran off with another woman?”
“I want the judges,” Ciji says, brushing from the back, more forcefully now, “to see a movie star.”
“So that’s it, then? After here—assuming you are not wearing a tiara tomorrow night—you’re going to get on a bus or a train and go to Hollywood?”
“I wish,” Ciji says, putting the brush down. “But I haven’t saved enough lettuce for that.”
“You won money last night for the swimsuit competition.”
“That’s enough to get me a better seat on the train home.”
“You’ll win more money if you make it to the Top Fifteen.”
“Maybe. But I don’t think these judges are noticing me. I mean, obviously they’re noticing my gams. But I think I was too cranky at the breakfast.”
“There’s another breakfast tomorrow. You can redeem yourself.”
“We’ll see. Maybe my Linda Darnell hair will dazzle them tonight in my evening gown. If not, it’s back to the hotel.”
“The hotel?”
“I told you, didn’t I? I work at this fancy hotel in Newport called the Cliff Lawn Manor. Overlooks the bluff right on the sound. Small place, but swanky. All the swells come. So I’ll go back there until I can save enough money to head out west. You should visit me sometime.”
“I had no idea you were a maid in a hotel.”
Ciji’s eyes dart upward, staring back at Betty through the reflection in the dressing-table mirror. “Who said anything about being a maid, Delaware? Sheesh! Give a girl a little credit, would you? I happen to work reception. I’m an excellent greeter. That’s why I would make a great Miss America. I can smile and nod and make small talk with anybody, no matter how much of a louse they are.” She reaches into her purse, extracts a card, and tosses it over at Betty. “Here, take this. It has the number and address of the hotel on it. If you’re ever in Newport, look me up.”
“How do I know you’ll take my call?”
“I answer the phone, sweetheart. I have to take your call.”
She uncaps her lipstick, begins applying a dark scarlet shade. “By the way, don’t think I haven’t realized you’ve completely changed the subject. We were talking about you and Dreamboat. What are you worried about now? Didn’t lunch with Mama Bear go well?”
Betty wants to tell Ciji everything—about the intercom, about what she overheard, about Honor McAllister’s cryptic manner and Griff’s moodiness and Eddie Tate’s snooping. Ciji’s black-and-white way of seeing things may actually help sort it all out. But it’s much too long a story to get into now. And it would probably sound ludicrous, anyway. There’s no reason to submerge herself in the drama of it any more than she already has.
“It went just ducky,” Betty says, walking over to the settee and kissing Ciji gently on the temple. “You look gorgeous. You’re gonna knock ’em dead.”
Ciji grabs her arm. “Betty,” she says in a tone Betty has not heard in her voice before, “listen to me. I think it’s great that you and Griff are having this big romance. Really, I do. It’s been fun to see you get so khaki wacky. But remember why you came here. Tomorrow night, whatever happens, this will all be over. You’ll be back at college, he’ll be here, and, well, romances with lots of miles in between them are tough to keep going, no matter how many love letters you write or boxes of chocolates you get in the mail. I think you’ve got to be realistic about what’s happening. These escorts, honey—they’re hired by the hostesses to be nice to us, to pay attention to us. You need to keep your eyes on what your future is really going to look like.”
Betty wants to say—no, she wants to scream, actually—No, you’re wrong. Griff loves me and I love him and that’s all that matters and we will find a way to be together once all of this is over, no matter what it takes. But she does not say that, because it is pointless to say that. Ciji’s verdict is no doubt Honor McAllister’s, too. But it’s not the truth. Betty knows it’s not the truth. She knows what is in her heart, how big and explosive it is, how she has never felt this way about another living person in her entire life. And she knows what is inside Griff’s—sensitive, plaintive Griff, who is suffering from a condition not of his own making, one she is certain her love and care can cure.
So instead Betty gently places a hand on Ciji’s cheek and smiles. “Don’t worry, Rhode Island. I know what I’m doing.”
༶
The aria seems endless, a barreling cyclone of notes whirling about the stage, the shriek of a wounded animal masquerading as opera. Miss New Mexico thrusts her gloved arms out with suitable brio at every high note, butchering Bizet with certainty. Betty knows very little about opera but a fair amount about music, and she knows this is a bad representation of the former that contains very little of the latter. Is this really the best New Mexico could find?
She fiddles with her pearls, staring out from the wings, her ice-blue satin gown feeling tighter by the second. She takes a deep breath, the latest in a series of long, gulping intakes of air she is attempting to employ to calm herself down. Polite applaus
e. Mercifully, the aria has ended.
“Miss New Mexico, Cecelia Marie Kihm!” Bob Russell thunders, as Cecelia, basking in the applause and, evidently, a fair amount of delusion, gathers her flowered skirt with two hands and scurries off the stage. Betty has not spent much time speaking with Cecelia but seems to recall a brief conversation where she learned the girl’s main ambition was to one day move to Tucson. And of course there have been those rumors about Cecelia and that hotel busboy, caught somewhere near the phone bank in the Marlborough-Blenheim. Betty has made a point not to engage in any idle gossip about the other girls. She is only too aware of what is probably being said about her.
Seventeen girls will perform their talents tonight on this, the last night that will determine the Top Fifteen at tomorrow night’s pageant. Cecelia was ninth; Betty is tenth. “And now,” Russell continues, “for our next talent performance, we will be treated to a solo on the harp of Alphonse Hasselmans’s beautiful composition ‘La Source, Opus 44,’ courtesy of the musical talents of . . . Miss Delaware, Betty Jane Welch!”
The imposing gilt Lyon & Healy harp has been wheeled onto the center of the stage, and as Betty walks toward it accompanied by cursory if underwhelming applause, she keeps her eyes fixed upon the strings, fighting the urge to scan the audience for faces: Griff’s, her parents’. The stage lights are white-hot and harsh, much brighter, Betty thinks, than they were for her swimsuit and evening gown preliminaries. For the best. They keep her sealed in a bubble, where she can see nothing but the harp, hear nothing but the notes.
She had debated performing something more contemporary, a tune the audience would have known, but in the end selected “La Source” because of both its difficulty and its lyricism. As she takes her seat on the bench and smooths her gown about her, she tilts back the harp and squares her shoulders. Belying its romantic appearance, the harp is an awkward, monstrous instrument. One wrong stroke and the harp will buzz, like an alarm; one misplaced foot on any of its seven pedals and you risk an even more horrible sound, something akin to a trombone being played underwater.