The Night She Won Miss America

by Michael Callahan

  “Mrs. Hensley. Eugenia Hensley. I’m the head housekeeper here at the Cliff Lawn. My family has been in Newport for generations.”

  “You don’t say,” Chick says. Scribble, scribble. Chick points toward the back windows, past which the billowing tent is now up, some of the side flaps fluttering in the wind as various men in gray overalls and sweat-stained T-shirts secure them to wooden stakes. “And what’s going on out there?”

  “Oh! Yes, we’re very proud to be the host hotel for the Preservation Society Masquerade Ball tomorrow evening. It’s the highlight of the season. Anyone who is anyone in Newport society will be here.”

  “That sounds like a lot to get off the ground,” Chick says. “You must have a great staff here.”

  “The finest.”

  Chick puts on his best “searching for a memory” face, chews his pencil thoughtfully for a few seconds. “Hey, didn’t I hear somewhere that Miss Rhode Island works here? She must have every man clobbered.”

  Mrs. Henley’s face melts back into its American Gothic blankness. “Miss Catherine Moore, yes,” she says, suddenly checking the cuffs of her jacket. “But of course we have many, many fine people working here.”

  “But not everybody’s Miss Rhode Island,” Chick says, grinning.

  “Mercifully, they are not.”

  “Is she around, by any chance? It would be great to get a quote from her for the story.”

  Mrs. Hensley delivers a cursory look into the other rooms. “I don’t see her. She’s been disappearing a bit of late.” She looks at Chick regretfully. “I shouldn’t have said such a thing. Please don’t write that.”

  “No problem,” Chick says, making a pronounced slash in his notebook. Mrs. Hensley relaxes visibly. He adds, “I wouldn’t want to upset the person who is obviously the one who makes this place run shipshape.”

  She colors slightly. “Well, you are kind. I wouldn’t quite put it that way—”

  “But back to Miss Moore. I mean, it doesn’t seem fair that she gets to just vanish whenever she feels like it. I mean, just between us.” He smiles again, and she returns it. He is not a handsome man, not dashing in even the most elastic definition of the term, but he has always been good with women like this, the invisible ones, the ones who are the play’s scenery, not its stars.

  “Well, I probably shouldn’t be saying this,” Mrs. Hensley says conspiratorially, “but she does have a young man visiting. They seem to be spending quite a bit of time together. I think that has a lot to do with it. You know how young people can be.”

  Griffin McAllister. He knew it! But where is Betty? Has Griff ditched her somewhere along the road, come to Newport to bebop with the best friend? This story was getting better every minute. “Well, ain’t that just the floy floy,” he says, shaking his head. “She’s off having a romance and you’re left with the work. That’s applesauce.”

  Mrs. Hensley’s eyes open wider. He’s hooked his fish. “Actually,” she whispers, “I believe the young man is out on the back porch. I saw him walk out just a few moments ago.”

  Chick’s heart speeds up a couple beats. He’s got to be careful. He can’t risk spooking McAllister, blowing his cover. And his camera’s still in the car. If he can get pictures, he’ll have the biggest story in the country. Goodbye, Atlantic City. Hello, New York.

  “Good to know, Mrs. H. You’ve sure been swell to help me out like this.” He looks around. “I don’t want to keep you from your duties. But who do I talk to about getting a press pass for tomorrow night? I think it would be great for my story to get some details about the big party.”

  “Oh, no trouble. Just ask for me when you arrive. Seven sharp!”

  “I’ll be here,” he says with a wink.

  She drifts off, floating on the cloud of her sensuous new identity as informant. As soon as she disappears from view, Chick beelines for the back of the hotel, peering through the windows onto the porch. A few couples sit in variously grouped white wicker chairs, drinking cool beverages; a grandmother, a younger woman, and two small girls daintily sip tea at the far right end. Chick cracks open the rear door, looks all the way down to the left, and sees a young man standing, both hands leaning on the railing, as if he’s catching his breath after finishing a long race. It takes a minute for Chick to process.

  Eddie Tate.

  Chick quickly dodges back inside, and the door slams, causing him to retreat even more quickly, back into the safety of the calling room. What the hell was Tate doing here? He wasn’t even on the payroll anymore.

  Chick curses himself. Damn! Tate has beat him to the story. No doubt he’s got the exclusive. That’s why he let them can him. He’s got Betty and Griff, is getting the whole sordid tale, no doubt selling it for big moolah to the Herald-Tribune or the Times. Maybe even Time or Life. He’ll be a star, the next Sevareid.

  Well, we’ll see about that, pal, Chick muses, hustling out the door. Because nobody’s scooping ole Chick Kaisinger this time.

  Twenty-eight

  In they pour, the elegant, the wealthy, the diffident, the scandalous, the dull, the dutiful, the beautiful, and the merely filthy rich. Newport was founded as a haven for those fleeing religious persecution and was now, in one of its more ebbing periods, primarily known as a rowdy navy town, teeming with too many bored, obstreperous sailors looking for too much stimulation. The America’s Cup race, once a stalwart attraction, was suspended several years ago. Indeed, the grandeur of Newport’s gilded age seems long past—even Gladys Vanderbilt gave up the Breakers just last year, leasing it to the Preservation Society for a dollar.

  Ciji stands, in her plain black Maggy Rouff evening gown a stark contrast to the women in their costumes—the dresses of courtesans and Colonial dames, flappers and southern belles. Seventy-eight-year-old Miss Amy Varnum of the Garden Club of Newport, not particularly known for her boldness of attire, has nonetheless arrived in a gentleman’s tuxedo, complete with top hat, cane, and patent leather spats, telling various astonished guests she is paying homage to Marlene Dietrich and that, if she consumes a few glasses of champagne, she might later be persuaded to belt out a chorus of “The Boys in the Back Room” with the orchestra.

  The Countess de Rougemont has come from La Forge Cottage. Mrs. Vanderbilt has not come (and neither has the mercurial Barbara Hutton), but the Van Rensselaers are here, as are the Auchinclosses, the Bruguieres, the LeRoys, the Gambrills, the Drexels, and a plethora of Adamses. Of course no one has quite managed the entrance of Doris Duke, who arrived perched atop a baby elephant, which clomped right down the Cliff Walk to the edge of the tent, where it dutifully bowed to allow its mistress—clad in Persian silk pajamas and holding an ornate mink mask on a stick made of glittering rhinestones and a cluster of peacock feathers—to dismount. Ciji thinks about what it must be like to have a life where your daily thoughts revolve only around where you are to travel and what you will wear to do it. She wonders if she will ever realize her dream of going to Hollywood, get to find out for herself.

  She takes a spin around the cavernous tent, which has three Swarovski crystal chandeliers strung up on the inside, a larger one in the middle, two smaller versions spaced north and south. A few couples are already on the dance floor, circling around as the Alexander Haas Orchestra—in from New York just this morning and now dressed in their fine scarlet, gold-braided uniforms—plays a catchy rendition of Vaughn Monroe’s “Ballerina.” The air is fogged with the scent of expensive perfume and Mr. Clifford’s award-winning white and cream tea roses, which swirl up in a sea of delicate greenery from the crystal centerpieces on the forty tables. Each table is set for ten, and they gleam with heavy bone-white china trimmed in gold, augmented by gold-plated dinner forks and salad forks and shrimp forks and soup spoons and sherbet spoons and coffee spoons and dinner knives and butter knives. Water goblets reflect the light with the same sparkle as that from the diamonds and rubies and emeralds on the throats, wrists, and fingers of the masked women who now glide through the room as if they w
ere skating across Corcoran’s Pond.

  “It’s magnificent. You’ve done a terrific job.”

  Eddie stands behind her. He’s dressed in an ill-fitting, slightly musty tuxedo, old livery she dug out from the hotel basement. Her efforts to procure a costume for Griff left her no time to think about one for him. Eddie’s mask is also too big, covering three-quarters of his face. He looks like Claude Rains in The Phantom of the Opera.

  “I can’t take credit for it,” she says, surveying the room. She returns the polite wave of a masked older gentleman she doesn’t recognize. “Mrs. Hensley and the staff were the ones who really did the work. But it should raise a nice amount of dough.”

  “You look very beautiful.”

  “If that were my only concern.”

  “This is going to work.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because it’s a very, very simple plan with very few elements. Everyone in the hotel is out here. Betty and Griff come down from their quarters, in costume, to a virtually empty building. Betty makes an ‘impulsive’ decision to take Griff out the front door so they can be alone outside for a few moments. We’re waiting out front with Honor and her goons. We shove him in the car, they take off, it’s over.”

  “He still has a gun.”

  “But we have the element of surprise.” He exhales. “And chloroform.”

  Ciji shakes her head. “How did this happen?”

  “Your roommate,” he says mournfully, “picked the wrong guy.”

  A couple dressed as Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn commands the floor with an artful, amorous tango to “El Choclo.” Ciji eyes Mrs. Hensley in the distance, barking instructions to two suitably terrified busboys.

  “I hope she appreciates what we’re doing for her,” Ciji says.

  “Me, too.”

  “You’ve checked? Her highness is out front in the car?”

  “Parked right by the side of the hotel.” Eddie takes another glance around. “Mutt’s in the car with her. Where’s Jeff?”

  Ciji nods slightly to the far right corner of the tent. “Big guy in the white dinner jacket and black mask. Holding the tumbler of whiskey.”

  Eddie watches a waiter carrying hors d’oeuvres pass them with a polished silver tray stocked with canapés. The orchestra has moved on to a string-heavy arrangement of “So in Love” from Kiss Me Kate. He smiles at the irony. “When are they due down?”

  Ciji checks her watch. “Fifteen minutes. I wanted to make sure all of the guests were here so we wouldn’t have company out front.” Everyone—save for Doris Duke, of course—is being shuttled directly from the car park around to the tent. But there is still the risk of a random straggler coming upon them as they nab Griff. It can’t be helped. If worse comes to worst, she’ll explain that one of the guests has fallen ill and is being taken to the hospital.

  Eddie glances around. “Well, I better try to blend into the woodwork, even if I do look like Jeeves.”

  Ciji smiles faintly. “I’m sorry. It was the best I could do.”

  “It’s a humdinger.” He takes her hand and squeezes it. “I’ll meet you out front in fifteen minutes.”

  ༶

  “Well,” Betty says, taking a slow turn around. “How do I look?”

  Her insides are jelly. No, worse than that. Lava. She thought she could never feel more anxiety than she had standing on the stage next to Eleanor Wyatt, waiting to hear the announcement of the new Miss America. But her life was not hanging in the balance that night. Tonight, it is.

  Her costume is a plain cotton dress with a lace-decorated bodice and a bright yellow satin ribbon at the waist, with a skirt that flares out to the floor. A matching mobcap covers her dark hair. She is modeling the outfit for Griff, projecting an outward buoyant image at complete odds with the nervy mess on the inside. He sits glumly on the bed, holding his tricorn hat in his hands, barely looking at her.

  She stops. “Griff, you’re supposed to say how lovely I look.”

  “You look lovely,” he says in monotone.

  Betty spies the clock on the bed table. They need to go down.

  “I think you look quite dashing. It’s time to go, sweetheart. Ciji is waiting for us. It’s going to be such fun. We deserve a nice night out.” She walks over, drops before him, kisses him lightly, is encouraged that he seems to respond. “Please.”

  They creep down the back staircase, and as they near the ground floor, the din of conversation and orchestra music grows louder. Griff brightens at the noise. “It sounds quite peppy,” he says.

  This is it.

  Betty turns to him, takes both hands in hers. “The hotel is empty,” she says devilishly. “C’mon, let’s go explore a bit while we can. I’m dying to see what the hotel looks like all decorated in the front.” Her heart hammers inside her chest.

  Griff’s eyes remain fixed toward the back. “No, no. This is risky enough. Let’s just go to the party. We need to blend in with the crowd.”

  “Oh, please, darling, please? Just for a moment. I just want to see—”

  He jerks his hands from hers. “Do as you please. I told you I’m not going. They don’t want me to go.”

  They don’t want me to go. Betty absorbs the dark clouds in his eyes. She risks a furtive look toward the front. She thought she would be strong enough to mollify him. But she will never be strong enough to mollify the voices.

  “All right, Griff. All right. We’ll go out to the party.”

  ༶

  Eddie checks his watch again. He walks back into the hotel.

  Ciji is standing behind the front desk, fiddling with papers. “They’re late,” Eddie says.

  “I know.” She checks the clock again. Twelve past. “Let’s just give them a few more minutes. Maybe he’s—”

  “Crazy?”

  “Eddie.”

  “There’s something wrong, Ciji. I can feel it. Can’t you? And I can’t keep Honor in the car much longer. She’s going to insist on coming in here and retrieving him herself if they don’t show up soon.”

  “Okay,” Ciji says. “I’ll go find them. Wait here.”

  ༶

  Chick curses himself. He couldn’t be more conspicuous if he tried. Every reporter here has to wear a badge that says PRESS pinned to his lapel. Worse yet, he wasn’t allowed to bring in his camera from the trunk; turns out the jerks from the Newport Daily News have exclusive rights to photograph the party. But, Mrs. Hensley has assured him, she can put him in touch with their photographer for any photos he might need for his Holiday magazine feature.

  Swell.

  He stalks the perimeter of the tent, looking for Tate, but with every guy in kooky duds, it’s impossible to even narrow the field. Is that him, standing over there in the English duke’s costume, talking to the woman who looks like Maid Marian? Or is he the guy by the huge silver punch bowl who looks like General Grant?

  I gotta make sure I see him before he sees me.

  He feels naked, exposed without his fedora to cover his eyes, but all these other jokers doffed theirs, and he couldn’t be the only one inside the tent wearing one. He finds a large potted fern in the tent’s corner, darts behind it. He scans the crowd for several more minutes before his eyes home in on a couple on the other side of the dance floor. The girl is dressed as some sort of Colonial wife, maybe Abigail Adams or something. Next to her is a tall man wearing what looks like some sort of Colonial regimental outfit, complete with a tricorn hat. He sports a light mustache and beard.

  It could be them, he thinks.

  And then he spies Catherine Moore, rushing in from the left, approaching them. She stops, makes polite chitchat with the couple for a few minutes. Chick feels his pulse begin to race. He takes a few steps forward, tries to manage a better sightline. Is it . . . ?

  He catches Catherine leaning in, whispering something to the woman, then brightly bidding the couple goodbye as she scurries away. The woman she was speaking to turns to her male companion and smiles. She turns
back toward the dance floor just long enough for Chick to now see her clearly, and even hidden beneath her white mask he knows it. He recalls a picture of her on the runway, waving to the throng inside Convention Hall, the tiara on her head, and that smile—that indelible, original smile.

  Holy Christ. It’s her. It’s Betty Jane Welch.

  Betty and Griff McAllister, right here, right under everyone’s noses. Chick wills himself to stay calm, stay smart. If only he had his camera! No one is going to believe it without a photo, or want it without a photo.

  I gotta get the picture.

  He takes a big step back, ensuring he’s once again adequately camouflaged by the potted foliage and passing patrons. He peruses the perimeter of the tent, looks for the seams, where the flaps have been lashed with heavy ropes tied to stakes in the ground outside. That’s his ticket. All he has to do is go get the camera, sneak around to the back of the tent, undo one of the rope knots, and slip in between the seam closest to Betty and Griff. Catch them off guard, snap the picture. Then run like hell.

  Chick stuffs his notebook into his pocket and strolls out of the tent.

  Twenty-nine

  Betty tries not to fidget, to appear what she is supposed to be, a party guest enjoying herself here, inside Newport’s l’affaire sociale de l’année. Instead she is simply a hopeless tangle of tension and doubts and regrets. And she is exhausted. She cannot ever remember being this tired, of just wanting to go to sleep and never wake up.

  Ciji has walked her through the plan. When she first heard it, Betty thought it was ludicrous, something Nancy Drew, George, and Bess would have concocted in a story called The Disappearance at Cliff Lawn Manor. But it had one thing going for it: it was simple. That is, it was. Until Griff had decided not to do the one thing she had needed him to do.