I watched his face, noticing his eyes widen in shock as the realization hit him like a right-hook to the head: I wasn’t his little girl anymore. My chest burned as I took a step closer to him, narrowing the gap between us. I reached to touch his shoulder and felt a slight trembling course down into his bones. He was frail, like a tiny bird cupped in the crook of my palm.
“You have to blast open those closet doors, Dad. Stop being ashamed of who you are. Why do you care what people think? Did it ever occur to you that by showing everybody that people like us exist, they wouldn’t be so afraid? That they might see us as human beings if they only realized we are their neighbours, their friends, their children?...”
He struggled to find his voice. When he spoke again it was in a hushed, raspy tone. “You don’t understand anything, Di. At your age, you always think that you don’t have anything to lose.”
“So you lie? To the world and to your own family? You risk everything to live a lie and were willing to lose me, your own daughter?”
My voice broke. If only he’d have gotten a divorce and let me stay with him. I could have avoided all the beatings, the shock treatments, the cruelty…. But no, I might have caught onto him, exposed what he thought of as his dirty little secret. He sent me off with my cold-hearted mother and her horrible boyfriend just to get me out of the house, just so he could have the place to himself to rendezvous with his young men.
He said nothing to this accusation, which was perhaps the most honest thing he’d ever done. Just kept staring at me with his soulful, hollow dark eyes – a broken man, broken by his own lies. He wasn’t that much different than my mother. Each of my parents was weak-willed, desperate for a way to fulfill their dreams but lacking the strength and determination to get the job done.
“Is this really what you want?” I asked softly. “To stay like this, silent in the dark, and have me walk out of your life rather than acknowledge what you’ve done wrong?”
The fact that he failed to answer spoke volumes. As I picked up my suitcase and purse and started to walk toward the staircase that led to my old bedroom, I watched my father’s young companion approach him and try to wrap his arms around this shoulders, only to be shaken away. I heard the liquor cabinet being unlocked and my father screwing the lid off one of his bottles and pour himself a drink.
I would spend only the night, sleeping in my old bedroom among all my old dolls and stuffed bears, the gleam of moonlight bouncing off the shininess of the track medals that hung from colored ribbons nailed to my wall. It was a little girl’s room, stocked with secret diaries and lollypops and music box ballerinas, drawers full of frilly nighties and hair curlers and a hidden tube of half-used red rouge that I’d swiped from my mother’s bathroom when I was thirteen. It was a room that belonged to my old life, a life I could never return to.
Early in the morning I would have a long soak in my claw-foot tub, rinse the grime of travel from my hair and pack a few extra garments from my bedroom into my suitcase. Afterwards I cooked a hearty breakfast for my father and I, fried eggs and thick slivers of bacon served with buttered toast. His boyfriend was conspicuously missing, though I didn’t doubt that my father, embarrassed at having been caught in his lie, had asked him to leave as soon as I’d gone upstairs last night.
We would exchange few words, as there really was no need to speak of what could not be changed, and when he slid a check across the table in the amount of five hundred dollars, a small fortune, I would accept it in spite of my pride.
There was nothing else my father could do for me now other than give me money to absolve his guilt. It was a form of love, however hollow, and I understood the gesture implicitly. It would solve nothing of our relationship, but that was not the point. He may not have loved me enough to keep me safe from my mother’s abusive streak, or speak on my behalf when he heard why I’d been locked up. He could never buy my forgiveness with five hundred dollars and he knew it – but it was the only thing he could do to show his remorse.
I didn’t know how long it would take me to forgive him, but at this point I didn’t care. He’d made his choices and I made mine. He could lead the rest of his life in shame and secret, but I refused to be locked up in a closet of my own volition. For now, his money would bring me closer to my beloved. It was more than enough to cover a one-way ticket to New York and pay for a month’s lodgings, buying me precious time until I found Rosario again.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
My fingers traced the ornate billboard sign outside the Winter Garden Theater, which was framed in the most dazzling light bulbs. The curlicue letters emblazoned on the poster behind the glass shouted out, Rosie Valentine and the Jiminy Boppers, playing Friday and Saturday 8:00 pm plus Sunday Matinée.
“You coming in, miss?”
Startled by the voice, I turned my head toward the young bellhop holding the door wide open for me. He cleared his throat. “Show’s started already,” he said apologetically, gesturing toward the velvet-carpeted entranceway.
I nodded and slipped past him into the painted hall, turning a short right toward the ticket booth, where a prissy young man with chestnut hair scowled at me. I ignored him and fumbled around in my purse, fishing out several coins, along with a speck of lint, and sliding them across the glossy wood counter.
Looking as though a stick had been crammed up his butt, the ticket-seller eyed me up and down with disdain before finally pushing the ticket at me, taking good care not to brush his fingers against mine. His hair was slicked back with gel, flattened against his skull, and his rodent teeth bared slightly in what I assumed was meant to pass as a smile. "A bit underdressed, are we?" he murmured under his breath after I turned away, and I wondered whether he was overly confident that I wouldn’t hear him or was wishing that I had.
I strode down a narrow hallway lined with a dark red carpet and pushed through a pair of black curtains to enter into a room that took my breath away.
Heavy, richly-colored burgundy velvet drapes framed a theatrical stage on which several musical instruments had been arranged. A set of drums was mounted several feet back from the open microphone, and next to the drums a lone electrical guitar was propped against an amp.
Round tables speckled the room, made of rich dark woods, likely mahogany, well-lacquered and adorned with glittering tea lights, and seated at those tables there were more than a hundred spectators, chattering among themselves excitedly, smoking, laughing. There were men and women both, and not necessarily seated with one another. What a vision this was, to see couples of every persuasion here tonight, united in their eagerness to behold the upcoming performance. Without exception they were impeccably-dressed, glowing with confidence, comfortable in their skin.
Worry took hold of me. Glancing down at my plain-Jane dress and scuffed shoes, a terrible thought came to my mind: what if Rosario found me unsophisticated and boring? I could never compete with one of these sparkling socialites, these social butterflies who carried themselves with gusto, knew what they wanted and were not ashamed to go after it. What hope did I have against such formidable creatures as these New York femmes? Theirs was a world of ruby-red silks and chiffons, Chanel perfume, scarlet rouge, glossy pearl necklaces, fat, lustrous curls and run-free nylons that covered shapely legs. None of that was me.
A wave of applause had me glancing up in time to see the velvet curtain part, and there she was! I had to blink twice to remind myself that this was no drugged hallucination of Rosario, made up while I was strapped onto some psych ward gurney. She wasn’t a wishful apparition but right here in the flesh, picking up her guitar and stepping forward to the microphone while the band members behind her, all wearing tuxedo jackets, took their places.
I forgot to breathe, so spellbound was I by her magnificence. She wore a dark blue bolero jacket over a silky white shirt tucked into black dress pants. Her hair was loose and fell over her shoulders, jet black and gleaming under the row of radiant overhead stage lights. But her voice – that was the most m
agnificent thing to behold! A haunting voice that stirred you up inside and made you ache for something you didn’t even know you wanted. I watched as people’s heads came together, whispering and smiling as they watched her, my Rosario, sing from the depths of her heart and soul.
I rested against the back wall, a bittersweet smile emerging on my lips. She had done it. She'd broken all the rules and made it as a star. How I wished that I’d been there to celebrate her hard-earned victories with her. But she hadn’t needed me at all. In truth it was me who needed her, and desperately. The strength of her arms wrapped around me, the solid beat of her fearless heart as I leaned my head against her chest.
I watched as she stepped off the stage during intermission, all that applause following her as she moved to a small table off-center from the stage and a svelte young girl with long, straight black hair halfway down to her waist rushed to hand her a tall drink with a straw coming out of it. She gazed up to Rosario in adoration as they both sat down, engaged in intense discussion.
The girl was gorgeous, her lithe body wrapped in a silk green dress. A bracelet made of small jade beads encircled her left wrist, which she moved to place on Rosario’s shoulder as she nodded. Rosario leaned to whisper something in her ear and they both broke out in laughter.
Shyness overwhelmed me. All this time I’d assumed that things would be exactly as we’d left off, but who was I fooling? Neither of us were the same people we were half a year ago – she was an up-and-coming rock’n’roll star with a brilliant future ahead of her while I was still a damaged little girl, scarred in mind and body, who couldn’t help but adore her from a distance.
What if I wasn’t good enough for her?
Five months had passed since that terrible night when we had been torn apart, an entire lifetime. She had relocated across the country and was now under contract with one of the most influential music clubs in New York City. I, on the other hand, was a nobody. Was it so farfetched to wonder if she’d assumed that I was never going to come back and moved on with her life? What if she already had a lover and she'd forgotten all about me?
An odd mixture of nervousness and trepidation kept me frozen in place, even as I desperately willed my legs to traverse the space between the two of us, to do anything but tremble frightfully. But it seemed safer somehow to wait in the shadows and watch her get up from the table, swiftly ascend the three steps at the side of the podium and resume her spot up on stage.
She was so happy. Her eyes shined with unbridled enthusiasm; this was her world, after all. Where she most belonged, the platform where she could release all that longing and ache I knew brimmed within her and that she’d suppressed all of her painful life. I dabbed at my eyes, which had become cloudy with tears of happiness. How beautiful she was! There was not a person in the entire damn world who was more deserving of this opportunity than Rosario.
And then, in a moment of déjà vu that brought me back to the first night I ever heard her sing, our eyes suddenly met across the wide expanse of that theater. She blinked and her fingers faltered on the guitar and she skipped a rift, which the musician behind her covered up with an extra flurry of drumbeats. Her eyebrows came together in a questioning expression, looking as though she didn’t believe her eyes. I smiled and nodded, answering the question, willing her to continue with the show even though she seemed just about ready to tear the guitar off and leap across the room to me.
The second part of her act seemed to last forever, excruciating for both of us though it couldn’t have been more than a half hour. At one point Rosario turned to the band members behind her and gave them a little gesture, and I instinctively knew she was going to cut her performance short. My stomach clenched in anticipation as I watched her disappear behind the velvet stage curtains only to be replaced at the microphone by the bass player who immediately launched into a heartfelt rendition of a Platters cover.
A light voice broke into my thoughts. “Excuse me, miss?”
The pretty young girl in the green dress had materialized behind me and now pointed toward the exit. “You’re Rosie’s friend, yes? She asked me to show you to her dressing room.”
We walked me down a narrow little corridor that led to a staircase which descended to the lower level of the theater. The girl’s silence intimidated me.
“Are you…are you friends too?” I asked, my voice quivering.
A peal of laughter. “Rosie’s friends with everybody,” she answered. “I’m her assistant, actually.”
Eventually we came to stand in front of a large wooden door. The girl rapped softly. “She’s here,” she announced. Then she turned to me and smiled. “You can go in now.”
I turned the knob, took in a big breath and opened the door.
Rosario was standing against her dressing counter, her arms crossed tightly over her chest. As soon as she saw me her face lit up and she crossed the room in two quick strides, sweeping me into her arms. I pressed my face into her chest, inhaling her familiar scent, listening to her strong heartbeat, and tried to keep from breaking down in tears.
“Thanks, Sara,” I heard her say to the girl in green, and the door shut with a firm click. The sound of diminishing footsteps told me that Rosario and I were alone together, at long last.
Her dressing quarters consisted of a tiny room with wildly-mottled wallpaper decorated with paisley feathers and garish red flowers. Along one side of it there was your typical bench, which faced a mirror topped with a long brass light fixture dotted with ten round incandescent bulbs.
No sooner had the door closed than I reached up and kissed Rosario deeply, passionately, caressing her face with my hands. After a moment she pulled back from the kiss and just held me tightly, locked inside her embrace. Her lips brushed the top of my head. She hesitated before pulling apart from me, as though she feared that all of this might dissolve into a dream.
Finally she took a step back, her hands grasping my shoulders tightly, fingernails digging into me. “What – what happened to you? Where have you been?”
It wasn’t time to tell her. Not yet. For just this moment, I wanted to pretend that the last five months hadn’t happened. I wanted to be normal, to feel only passion and desire instead of anguish. So I shook my head and looped my arms around her neck. “It’s all water under the bridge, Ro. I just want you so much, more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life.”
She gave me a piercing gaze. “I can’t believe you’re actually here. After all this time. I was worried sick about you. Why didn’t you ever contact me, in all that time?” she repeated, and I detected a resentful tone in her voice. “Even if they kept you under lock and key, couldn’t you have called? Was there someone else?”
I wouldn’t let her pull away from me even as she tried. “Please tell me you didn’t forget about me,” I said, my voice breaking. “Leonora told me you were on the road, and I heard your song on the radio…perhaps you’re the one who has moved on.”
Her eyes flashed with anger. “Do you have any idea how much grief you put me through? How I tried to reach you? They told me you went back east to live with your dad.”
“And you believed that?”
“What was I to believe, when months passed and I heard nothing from you? You tell me.”
My heart sank. She thought I’d turned into another Carmen, the self-fulfilling prophesy of the straight girl who fools around with a queer for kicks but runs off at the slightest sign of trouble. “Do you really think so little of me?” I asked quietly.
When she said nothing in response, I reached up on my tiptoes and kissed her again, softly, running a hand through her jet-black hair. Her body stiffened, as though she was trying to decide whether to question me further. To silence her doubts, I pressed myself against her in an attempt to wordlessly communicate my longing.
Rosario’s breathing quickened. Almost as if to defy her physical reaction, she pushed me away sharply, holding me back by my shoulders. Her voice trembled with rage. “You’ve gotta do better th
an that, Diana. Do you really think you can just waltz back into my life, five months later, no explanations, and expect that I’ll just fuck you as though nothing has happened?”
The way she threw those words at me was like a slap in the face, an accusation of betrayal. They were jarring to my ears. Had I lost her? Did she still want me? I stood before her wide-eyed, yearning so badly to be touched. “Why not?” I said, biting my lip, my cheeks flushing red. “You got somebody else now?”
She sneered, and for a moment there I wasn’t sure if she was laughing at me or mocking me. “Are you serious? You track me down across the country and show up out of the blue tonight, but instead of telling me what happened you act like some goddamn groupie, coming backstage looking for action?”
I caught my breath. “Is that what you do backstage, then? Sleep with all your fans?”
She laughed, but there was no humor in it. “I can use you good, if that’s what you want. If that’s the way you want to play this game.”
She unbuckled her belt swiftly, the sound of her belt coming loose making me instantly wet. She pulled her zipper down and unfastened her breeches. My face flushed red as I wondered if she could sense my arousal. Her eyes bore into me but she didn’t say anything, she didn’t have to. I knew what she wanted, what I was supposed to do. I fell to my knees in front of her, pulling the pants over her hips, breathing in her scent. I parted her thighs and buried my face in her mound, licking and stroking her with my tongue.
I heard her groan and whisper my name as her hands twisted in my hair. I felt her knuckles against my scalp, pressing me into her, forcing me all the closer. She thrust her hips forward as I sucked her clit as hard as I could. My tongue flicked to and fro with an expertise I didn’t know I had in me, entering her, tasting her wetness against my cheek.
She leaned against the wall and sighed. From the corner of my eye I could see her head tilt backwards, her eyes closed tightly, her face contorted with the orgasm that was to come. Her fist clenched tighter against my scalp, pulling my hair roughly as she rammed her hips forward, hard, into my eager mouth. At once, a jolt of pleasure coursed through her and released down my throat, a gush of scorching liquid that filled my mouth and made me wetter than ever with desire.
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