The Night She Won Miss America

by Michael Callahan

  “Okay,” she says, rubbing his arm. “Poor baby. I wish I knew how to drive.”

  “No, I’m fine. We’ll just stop somewhere and pick up some food.”

  “Are you sure that’s it? Is there something else wrong?”

  “No, baby. Don’t worry,” he says, leaning over and kissing her. He’s relieved she cannot hear the voices inside his head.

  She’s evil, Voltaire says.

  She is out to get you. You need to get her first, the grandfather one adds.

  Why can’t you see what she is doing to you? She is the ghost of Helen, haunting you, says the angry woman, interrupting. She always interrupts.

  Get away from her! screams the shrew. Get away now!

  Seventeen

  Betty peers down onto Twenty-First Street. It’s what one would expect on a mid-September day in New York: three girls playing hopscotch, a group of boys immersed in a raucous game of stickball at the end near Eighth Avenue. Two plumbers walk slowly down the stoop diagonally across the street; a woman in a cloth coat and a blue felt hat clutches a grocery sack with both hands, walks purposefully in the other direction, toward Seventh.

  She has been to New York only twice: in 1939, for the World’s Fair in Flushing Meadow, and in the summer of 1943, a girls’ day for just her and her mother, to have tea at the Plaza and see Oklahoma! at the St. James. Betty sang “Many a New Day” incessantly for weeks after.

  She thinks about her mother, how worried she must be.

  “You’re never gonna settle into life on the run if you’re always this jumpy,” comes the voice from the kitchen.

  Betty lets the shade fall back. “I’m not jumpy,” she says defensively. “And I am not on the run.”

  He walks out of the galley kitchen into the living room, wiping his hands on a dish towel. He wears only a white-ribbed A-shirt and a pair of pants. He is always walking around the apartment barely dressed, and it unnerves her. But it is his apartment. She can hardly object.

  Reeve Spencer is short, at least compared to Griff—he can’t be more than five-seven, she imagines—and wiry, a young man with an English name and Italian looks, including a head of bristly black hair, like a particularly hirsute porcupine. He has a lithe, toned physique that suggests he has at some point intersected with athletics, physical labor, or fortunate genetics. His teeth are too big for his mouth and are just crooked enough to give him a permanent look of disinterested insolence, like a grown-up Bowery Boy; his eyes are blue and ceaselessly mocking. Since she and Griff got here just over a week ago, she has been on edge any time she and Reeve have been alone. There is something faintly subversive and unkind in his overall demeanor—he has an awful and juvenile sense of humor. Yesterday he was in near hysterics reading aloud from some vulgar comic book.

  “You don’t like me very much, do you?” he asks her, shoving the dishtowel into the back of his waistband.

  No. I don’t. “I’m sorry if you’ve found me unfriendly,” she says. “It certainly hasn’t been my intent. I can assure you that both Griff and I are very appreciative of everything you’ve done for us.” The answer a Miss America contestant would give.

  She wishes Griff had picked another friend—any friend—with whom to seek safe haven. There is something unctuous about Reeve that unsettles her. Worse yet, she is certain that he knows it.

  “I’m gonna fix us a little drink,” he says, circling back to the kitchen.

  She begins to object but stops, settles onto the living room chair. Maybe it will help. They won’t be here forever, but for now they are, in fact, very much here. Griff has spent the last week drawing in a copybook, making all sorts of grand plans for them, like a bank robber mapping out the location of the vault and the proper escape route. Betty finally managed to peek inside the book last night while Griff was in the bathroom and found nothing but slashing lines, circles, odd symbols. She is either in the hands of a genius who has his own symbolic language, or she is in the hands of a madman.

  She presses her eyes closed.

  Who am I?

  More than once since getting to New York, she has awoken disoriented, unable to find her life in her first few moments of consciousness. Nine days ago she was the toast of the nation, the girl every girl wanted to be. And then she threw it away like a day-old newspaper. Sometimes she expects regret to rush in, but it never does; she knows now that she was not meant to be Miss America. In her quest to be the good daughter, she had ignored the woman she was meant to become.

  And now she had found her.

  The first few days in New York had been as romantic as their escape, filled with adrenaline and backstreet romance. He would dash out and bring back all sorts of foreign foods—how she had, to his delight, practically gobbled down that delicious Cuban sandwich! The daybed in the living room was cramped, but each night they fell asleep in each other’s arms, safe in their mutual company and affection. She thought often of his confession of his medical condition that day on the jetty in Longport, worried about triggering it back through the stress of their adventure. But he had seemed more himself these past few days than ever before, almost buoyant in the shared view of a new life they would discover together. Their lovemaking, carefully plotted after Reeve left for work in the morning, had provoked a physicality in her that made her blush. She lived for his touch, his gaze, his mouth, for his body, tight and taut like ship rope, melding into her softness and curves.

  Reeve hands her a tumbler with whiskey. He takes a seat on the daybed, clinks their glasses. “Here’s looking up your old address.”

  So witty.

  She takes a sip, fights the choking. Betty has never understood the allure of whiskey to men. She wonders if it is simply another test of virility, like chopping wood or fathering children.

  “So,” Reeve says, crossing his ankles on the coffee table, “how much has Griff told you about his brief college days here in New York?” His tone carries the unmistakable timbre of If you only knew.

  “Enough,” she lies. She does not want to hear stories about Griff. She takes another swig of the whiskey.

  “I doubt that,” he says, breaking out into his sickening grin. “I know one thing: the Griff McAllister you know sure as hell ain’t the one I know.”

  A well-timed key in the door. Griff walks in, carrying a paper bag, tosses his hat onto the table as he leans down to kiss her. “How’s my girl today?”

  “Getting more stir-crazy by the minute. I need to get back outside, Griff. I’ve been out precisely twice since we arrived. I can’t stay locked in here like Rapunzel every day.”

  He plops down, throws an arm around her as he squeezes into the armchair with her. “Whiskey? Boy, you do need to get out.”

  “Indeed.”

  “Got a surprise for you. Reach into my breast pocket.”

  Betty feels heavy paper. Tickets. She plucks them out. Two tickets to tomorrow night’s performance of Miss Liberty at the Imperial Theatre. “Oh, Griff! Griff! We’re going to a play? How thrilling!”

  “And dinner beforehand, at some cozy little place. It’s time we started to live a little.”

  Reeve looks on, quietly assessing them. He swirls the whiskey in his glass, gulps the remainder down. “Well, nice to see the lovebirds nesting so sweetly. I gotta go get washed up.”

  As Reeve heads to the bathroom, Griff leans down to Betty, pecks her softly on the lips. “I bought you something else, too,” he says, reaching for the sack.

  “Oh no, Griff, you mustn’t!” He’s already bought her two dresses since they’ve been here, his apology for not allowing her to properly pack. But they do not have unlimited money. Betty has a total of eleven dollars in her purse.

  He extracts the contents, and Betty’s eyes narrow. “Is that what I think it is?” she asks.

  “It is, my pet,” he answers. “It’s the new you.”

  ༶

  She doesn’t want Griff to go.

  “But, honey, you know I have to,” he says, sliding his jacket on
. “I finally got a cat to switch cars with me. He’s getting the best part of the deal, of course—I mean, a new Mercury for a ’45 Fleetline—but then we can finally get out of here.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “That’s the beautiful part,” he says, kissing her forehead. “Anywhere we want.”

  “We don’t have enough money.”

  “Why are you being a wet noodle all of a sudden? Huh? What’s gotten into you, baby?”

  I don’t want to be alone in this apartment with that creep Reeve. I miss my family. I need to know where all of this is headed.

  “Nothing, nothing,” she says. “You did send that letter, right? I would hate to think of my parents back in Delaware worrying about me, wondering what’s happened. It wouldn’t be fair.”

  “Sure, honey, sure. Don’t worry. We’ll get settled somewhere, and I’ll get a good job. By then those Miss America folks will have moved on from all of this, and we can write your folks back again and tell them where we are. We’ll throw a big party!” He takes her in his arms, nestles her head in his chest. “That’s what you want, isn’t it? You still want us to be together, right?”

  There is a faint desperation in his voice that sends the hairs on the back of her neck upright. She loves him. It is exactly what she wants.

  Isn’t it?

  “Of course,” she whispers. “Of course it is.”

  He takes her chin in his hand, bends down to kiss her softly. “Have I told you how beautiful you look?”

  “Yes,” she says, smiling. “But some things bear repeating.”

  “You look even prettier as a brunette.”

  She has never considered dyeing her hair. She’d known a few classmates at Towson who had, but hair coloring was the pastime of mousy-haired girls who’d always longed to be willowy blondes. Dyeing your head black was something old women did to swat away hair now the color of steel wool. Looking into the mirror last night, after she’d rinsed the last of the henna, she hadn’t recognized herself. Which was, of course, exactly the reason Griff had insisted. If Betty wanted more freedom to move about the city, she needed to not look like Betty Jane Welch at all. And tonight is her reward: dinner and a play.

  A few minutes after Griff leaves, the bedroom door opens. Reeve drifts into the kitchen, scratching his head, seemingly willing himself awake. He wears only pajama bottoms.

  “Any coffee left?” he asks sleepily.

  “Yes,” Betty answers crisply, settling down onto the daybed with a copy of McCall’s. Griff has been bringing her magazines to pass the time—she knows he is withholding newspapers, and why. God knows what’s being said about her. “Aren’t you going to be late for work?”

  He pours himself a cup, shuffles into the living room. “Nobody notices if I’m late,” he says, plopping into the chair. “Actually, nobody notices me at all.”

  “Well, you must do okay for yourself, to afford an apartment in Manhattan.”

  “Parents who are swells, sweetie. Same as Griff. And it ain’t like I’m living on Park Avenue.”

  She flips through the magazine aggressively, looking for something to distract her. She’s been trying to be nicer, more conversational with Reeve. Griff has pointed out, more than once, that it is Reeve who is doing them the good deed. She knows Griff’s right. And yet Reeve’s smirking demeanor does nothing but leave her cold every time they are in a room together. Once they get the new car, they can leave Reeve and his persiflage behind.

  “I think they’re gonna make me work late again tonight,” he says, “those no-good sons of bitches.”

  Thank God. She is about to inquire what it is he does, exactly—he works in an office somewhere in Midtown, that much she knows—but then decides against it. She’s done her duty, made polite conversation. She doesn’t want to encourage any more of it than is absolutely necessary.

  “You know, you’re not at all like the girls Griff usually goes for,” he says, throwing his legs over the arm of the chair. He takes another sip of the coffee. She can feel his gaze zeroing in on her, studying her.

  “I have to say, when we were at NYU, he was a regular Rubirosa. He was the only guy I knew who could unhook a bra with one hand.” Reeve’s eyes bore into the side of her face. She refuses to look at him, to give him any validation of her own discomfort. If this is the worst she will endure to procure lasting happiness, it’s a small price. “You’re being very quiet,” he says. “I’m sorry: have I shocked you?”

  “On the contrary,” Betty replies, casually turning the page of the magazine, “I confess I haven’t been listening. I’m quite engrossed in my article.”

  “You’re pretty as a brunette.”

  She says nothing.

  He rises from the chair, walks to stand next to her as she sits on the daybed. He reaches out to touch her hair. She flinches, moves her head away. “Very pretty,” he whispers. “Griff’s a lucky guy. I gotta hand it to him. The man who got Miss America to run away with him.”

  He stands for another uncomfortable moment, looking down at her as he sips his cooling coffee. She keeps her eyes glued to the page, reads the same sentence over and over as adrenaline spreads inside, like an oozing blob. She can hear his breathing, smell the musk of him. It takes all of her resolve to sit immobile, express laxity. She must speak to Griff when he gets back. Forget the play. They have to leave, now. She cannot spend another night in this apartment with Reeve Spencer and his oily, menacing manner. “You’re going to be quite late,” she says softly under her breath, but loud enough for him to hear her.

  He estimates her, then takes a step back. “Right you are,” he says.

  Reeve pads down the hall toward the bedroom, talking to himself, but this time loud enough for her to hear him. “Yeah, that Griff sure is a lucky guy. Too bad he’s so fucked in the head.”

  ༶

  The knocking wakes her up.

  Her mind clears gradually from the nap, like walking through an old attic, clearing cobwebs with your hand. For a moment she’s disoriented. She props up on an elbow on the daybed, listening.

  Tap tap tap.

  No question. At the door of the apartment.

  She bolts up.

  Don’t move! she commands herself. Terrible images flood her brain: the police, guns drawn, ready to escort her to a waiting car, photographers outside, waiting to capture an image of the disgraced Miss America.

  Get ahold of yourself! You’re not a criminal. Listen. Think!

  A pause. Then again. Tap tap tap. Not a proper knocking, certainly not the urgent pounding one would expect from people in authority. Betty rises gingerly from the daybed, steps over the magazine that dropped onto the floor after she fell asleep. She creeps over toward the door.

  “Hey, lady!” A voice, outside. Pitched but small. A child’s. “C’mon! I know you’re in there! Open up! I got a message for ya!”

  She checks the chain across the door. Secure. Griff has been fanatical about his instructions to never answer the door, under any circumstances. Betty hesitates, and the tapping resumes. Clearly the boy is not going to leave.

  Betty cracks the door open. “What do you want?” she whispers, careful not to fully show her face. She can see the boy is short, stout, with big brown eyes. He can’t be more than ten.

  “Finally! Sheesh! You’re lucky he paid me to deliver this. Here!” The boy thrusts an envelope through the crack. It goes sailing onto the floor behind her, like an errant paper airplane. The boy rumbles down the stairs. She hears coins jingling in his pocket as he disappears, no doubt headed somewhere for ice cream paid for by his newfound wages.

  Betty slams the door shut, turns the deadbolt, reflexively double-checks it.

  She kneels to retrieve the unmarked white envelope, furtively tears it open.

  She recognizes the handwriting at once—it’s not the first note of its kind.

  I KNOW YOU’RE IN THERE. MEET ME AT ADDRESS BELOW TODAY AT 3 OR I TELL THE WORLD WHERE YOU ARE.

  Eighteen


  The Nautilus is a seafood restaurant two blocks away on West Twenty-Third Street that touts its soft-shell crabs and offers a daily lunch special between eleven and three for $1.25. Eddie sits in a back booth, a piping cup of coffee in hand, a copy of the New York Daily Mirror on the table, paying no particular attention to either. With his little round glasses and gray blazer, he could pass for a graduate student. Only he is not a graduate student. He is a man with her life in his hands.

  She scoots in, nods affirmatively when the waitress asks if she wants coffee. It feels like an eternity as the cup is filled. Betty unknots her head scarf, removes her sunglasses.

  “A brunette,” he says dryly. “That’ll throw ’em off the scent.”

  “It’s worked so far.”

  “Yeah, I can see things are going great.” He slides the newspaper aside, reaches over to cover her hand in his. She retracts, like she’s just been bitten. “Please don’t.”

  He bows his head, his hand vanishing underneath the table as she takes a sip of the still-too-hot coffee. He doesn’t seem to know what to do now, so he picks up his own cup, does the same. The silence is excruciating, like listening to a telephone ringing and no one picks it up.

  “I could lose my job over this,” he says finally.

  “Over what?”

  He looks at her, incredulous. “Over the fact that I am sitting on the biggest story not just in Atlantic City, but maybe in the entire country, and I am not telling my editors about it. In case you’ve forgotten, I am a newspaper reporter, Betty.”

  “Shhh!” she hisses, louder than she intends. Her eyes dart around the restaurant, shifty, like a thief’s. “Don’t say my name out loud. For Christ’s sake.”

  “ ‘For Christ’s sake’? A week on the run and you’re already swearing?”

  She eyes him evenly. Whatever happens, she needs him on her side.

  “I’m sorry. As you might imagine, I have been under a tremendous amount of strain. I’m just trying to . . . figure everything out.”