Strings Attached Page 4

  I’d made it. It seemed impossible, glorious. I thought of all the dancers sitting at drugstore counters, out of work. That wasn’t me anymore.

  Would it have happened without Nate Benedict making that call? I knew I’d danced well, but the fact that someone had paved the way took some of the pleasure out of it. That was the thorn on the stem of the flower, the lemon in my dish of cream.

  Five

  Providence, Rhode Island

  September 1950

  This was how the act at the Riverbank Club had gone: Tony Carroll would call for a glass of water in the middle of the act, and I would bring it. He would make eyes at me, and I’d ignore him, and then he’d say, “What you need is a love song,” and I’d say, “What you need is a muzzle.” He’d act offended and stomp off the stage (straight for the bar to down a drink) and I’d be alone up there. After a beat, I’d take a sip of the water, cue the orchestra, and sing “Powder Your Face with Sunshine.” Right after the applause, he’d come back and say, “No need to steal the show, kid,” and together we’d sing “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.” More applause.

  I even got a mention in the paper:

  CORRIGAN TRIPLET GROWS UP SWELL CROONER

  One night as I carried the glass of water up to the stage, I saw Nate sitting at the corner table, alone. Probably there to check out that I could actually sing, I figured, or maybe that my material was clean. He slipped out after my number with Tony, without saying a word.

  It was a hard September rain that night, but it didn’t stop people from coming. I had been back and forth, back and forth, seating people all night. I stood near the door, waiting for the late-night crowd to trickle in from the theater or the movies. The band was playing, and the dance floor was packed.

  About midnight the door opened, and two men walked in, dressed in snappy suits and hats. I saw the hatcheck girl’s face as one of them handed her a tip, a folded bill that obviously pleased her. Some swells from Boston, I guessed. Then one of them turned around and it was Jeff Toland.

  “Providence!” he called. He strode over, smiling, and took my hand.

  “Mr. Toland!” I couldn’t believe he was right there in my hometown. “We don’t see a Hollywood star in here every day.”

  “Call me Jeff — you did this summer at the theater. Hey, you promised to come and see my show.”

  “I’m sorry, I was planning to …”

  “It’s all right — it was a dog, and we’re closing out of town. The producers pulled out, the skunks.” I could tell he was a little drunk.

  The other man slipped a twenty in my hand and asked for the best table. I showed them to a booth that gave them the best view of the dance floor but was still private, so Jeff couldn’t be seen from the door.

  “Perfect,” he said. “Now if you dance with me I’ll feel even better. You should see this girl dance,” he told the other man. “I’m not kidding.”

  I remembered the last time we’d danced, outdoors at midnight underneath a big fat moon, showing off for the cast.

  “I’m not allowed to dance with customers,” I said. “Sorry.”

  The opening chords of Tony’s act began, and I hurried toward the bar for the glass of water to use as a prop. I gave the high sign to Sammy, the manager, that there was a VIP in the house. Then I waited through the beginning of the act for my cue.

  “Sorry, folks, I’m a little hoarse tonight. Anybody got a glass of water for a dying man?”

  The couples in front held up a glass of water if they had it. Some drunk usually yelled out that water went better with Scotch. I made my way through the tables, holding the glass high and throwing out my first line. I could feel the pleasure of the audience and hear their laughter, and I could tell by Tony’s upstage wink that the night was going well.

  I sang my first song, and then we did the duet. I looked over at Jeff’s table and saw him applauding madly. He beckoned to me. I looked over at Sammy and he nodded. A Hollywood star was in the house, and he would get whatever he wanted. Including me.

  I walked over to the table and he stood. “That was terrific, kid.”

  I realized that he was calling me “Providence” and “kid” because he didn’t remember my name.

  “You were really something. And you look like a million bucks. Did you grow up or something?”

  “Or something, maybe.”

  “Sit down and have a drink. Okay, not a drink — a soda. Meet my friend here. This is Mr. Tommy Fabian. He’s a very big agent, so smile at whatever he says, and maybe I’ll forgive him for talking me into the turkey that’s closing tomorrow. Tommy is from Providence, how do you like that, so he’s showing me the town. Just to get my mind off my misery. We’ve got a room at the Biltmore. He’s Paying.”

  Nervously, I slid into the booth. Jeff appeared to be drunker than before, but I guessed he was blowing off steam after a bad show.

  He waved at the waiter, and I saw Jamie enter with Billy. Billy scanned the room and I shrank back, but he saw me.

  Of course, I thought. Just my luck.

  Billy registered that I was squeezed in next to Jeff Toland. Even from here I could see how he stiffened.

  “If you’ll excuse me,” I said quickly, “I have to get back to work.”

  “Ah, duty calls. Well …” Jeff slid out of the banquette and stumbled a bit just as I got out. I reached out to steady him, my hands on his arms, and he leaned over and kissed me on the lips. “Sorry to get fresh. I’ll regret that in the morning. But then, I’m going to regret the whole last six months. Ten years ago I was golden, and now I’m doing stock. And schlock.”

  “You’d better sit down, Mr. Toland.” I pushed him back down.

  I hurried toward Billy and Jamie. “We can go,” I said. “Is it still raining outside?”

  “You don’t want to leave your boyfriend, do you?” Billy asked sulkily.

  “C’mon, guys,” Jamie said. “If we don’t leave soon, we’ll have to build an ark.”

  Billy pushed past us and stalked back toward the rear exit. Jamie started after him, but Billy kept going, slamming out the outer door. I saw him for one moment illuminated against the neon and the glitter of rain.

  “Go,” I said to Jamie. “I have to tell Sammy I’m leaving.” It was a few minutes before my shift was over, but I quickly went for my coat and signaled I was going. Sammy beckoned to me but I pretended I didn’t see him. Probably asking me to stick around, but he’d forgive me if I left.

  The rain slapped my cheeks as I opened the door. At first I didn’t understand what I was seeing and hearing, the crunch and squeal of metal, the shattering glass. Billy was in his car and had rammed into a yellow Cadillac with New York plates. He backed up and then floored the accelerator, ramming into it again.

  I ran across the parking lot. Jamie was soon at my side.

  Billy’s car stopped. He slumped over the steering wheel. I ran toward him, afraid he was hurt.

  The car door opened and he slowly got out. Then he fell to his knees.

  “Billy …” I ran forward, holding him up by the shoulders. “What are you doing? Are you crazy?”

  He shook me off and I stumbled and almost fell. He wasn’t hurt. He stood up again and lifted his face to the sky, his eyes closed. With all the rain, I couldn’t tell if he was crying. His white shirt was plastered to his chest. My heart ached to see the pain on his face. “Billy …” I whispered his name and the sound was swallowed up by the drumming of the rain on the hood.

  Suddenly, he slammed his fist into his car. I cried out. He could have broken his hand.

  Jamie put his arms around him from behind and held him fast. “You’ve got to stop it now, Billy,” he said. “Billy, do you hear me?” Jamie tightened his hold and rested his forehead against Billy’s back, restraining him. “It’s all right. It’s all right.”

  “It’s not all right!” I yelled, pulling back. “Look at Jeff’s car! What are you doing?”

  “What were you doing?” Billy spat back at me
. “My job!”

  “What — did he pay you extra for that kiss, or did you just throw it in for free? Do you know what you looked like in there?”

  I could see the murder in his eyes. That rage. It wasn’t surprising me anymore. There was no way around it. At this moment, he hated me. When he got angry, he couldn’t even see me anymore. He saw a different girl, a girl who was deliberately grinding his heart into the ground.

  “I can’t take this anymore!” I had to shout the words over the rain and wind.

  “You?” He laughed. “You can’t take it?”

  “Do you think I could ever marry you, stay with someone like you?” I asked him. “Why do you keep doing this to us? What is wrong with you?”

  I saw him register the shock of the question. He smiled at me, an empty smile. “Everything, I guess.”

  “I never want to see you again,” I said. “This time it’s over. I’m afraid of you!”

  He pushed out of Jamie’s grip and fell back against the car, his wet hair in his eyes. “That makes two of us,” he said.

  I almost went to him then; I even took a step forward. But just then, Jeff Toland displayed the worst timing of his career by coming out of the back door, fumbling with an umbrella, and splashing right into a puddle.

  Billy looked over at him and I saw the change in his face, how the fury came roaring back. Now he had something to fight that would fight back. I saw it all, but my reflexes let me down. Before I could stop him, he pushed away from the car and raced toward Jeff.

  Jeff looked up, the umbrella half open, as Billy’s fist connected. The blow was so hard I heard it, the sickening sound of the sudden rearrangement of bone. Jeff fell back. I heard the thwack of his head against the concrete.

  Jamie and I ran. Jamie grabbed Billy while I knelt over Jeff. His eyes were closed. His skin looked so white. With shaking fingers I tried to feel for a pulse. I looked up at Jamie. Billy’s eyes were wide with horror.

  “Get Billy out of here!” I screamed.

  They stood frozen for a minute. Then Jamie half carried, half dragged Billy to his car. Billy kept staring back at Jeff. Jamie pushed him into the car and went around to the driver’s side. I heard the engine start and the car pull away.

  “Jeff!” I yelled the word into his face. “Please. Wake up. Please, please don’t be dead.” I started to cry, and I tried to shield the rain from his face while I talked to him.

  The rain was washing away the blood on his mouth. I looked around frantically. I couldn’t leave him like this, but I had to get help. I ran inside. Sammy was at the end of the bar, and I plucked at his sleeve with wet fingers.

  “Jeff Toland is outside, passed out….”

  He took one look at me and hurried away, back toward the rear door. I walked unsteadily to the phone behind the bar. I willed my shaking fingers to dial Billy’s number. It rang only three times and I heard Nate’s voice, sounding alert and awake.

  “I need you to fix something,” I said.

  Six

  New York City

  October 1950

  “Dancing in a nightclub? Da will blow his stack!” Muddie said. “Oh, Kit, are you sure?”

  “It’s not just a nightclub — it’s the Lido!” I was already starting to regret splurging on a long-distance call. I could feel my money draining with every exclamation Muddie made, from her first squeal “Kit!” to her “Isn’t this expensive?” and her “Where are you calling from?”

  Walking home, all I could think of was telling someone my news. I hadn’t been lonesome until that moment, when I had nobody to tell. I’d been dying to brag, to let my family know that not only did I have a job, it was a real job, a job to envy, something glamorous, exactly the kind of job a girl from Providence would dream of getting in New York City. And who else to call but my sister? Every Sunday night we’d listened to Manhattan Merry-Go-Round when we were kids, listening to “all the big night spots of New York town.”

  I sat on the couch, wedged into a corner. The telephone cord stretched just far enough. Sitting here one day, I’d realized that the mirror on the far wall was hung high for a reason. If the curtains were open, you could catch a flash of the East River.

  “He’ll only know if you tell him,” I added.

  “I can’t lie to him, Kitty.”

  I sighed. “I’m not saying lie. Can’t you stretch a commandment once in a while? You can say you talked to me. Say I’m fine, I have an apartment now and a job. You don’t have to tell him what it is. Oh, hell, I don’t care if you tell him. Let him blow.”

  “You said hell.”

  “Damn right I did.”

  “Kit!” I could hear Muddie try to stifle her giggle. “You’re a caution. It’s so quiet here without you and Jamie.”

  We were both silent for a moment.

  I looked at the sliver of river in the mirror. Home. It came back to me then, the apartment on Transit Street. Cramped and damp, street noise coming through the window, along with the smells of Portuguese stew and someone playing the radio. Kids down the block playing a game on the street, yelling out instructions for One Flies Up. And me, grabbing for privacy in the bathroom, tapping out shuffle ball change and time steps on the tiles while I looked in the full-length mirror Da had hung on the back of the door so I could practice. Over the years, my taps had pitted the tiles, but he’d never cared. Would he really blow his stack if he knew I was dancing in a nightclub? Probably … but then wouldn’t he in the next breath twist it around and be proudly proclaiming to the neighborhood that I was a Lido Doll?

  “You’re still mad at him?” Muddie asked.

  I thought of that morning when Jamie came home, of the thin line of Da’s mouth, of the way disgust had made my handsome father look ugly.

  “He hasn’t done a thing since I left, has he?”

  “No,” Muddie said, drawing out the word. “But, Kit, he feels it. Do you know, he stopped drinking. Not even a slug of whiskey from the bottle when he gets home. He’s here every night on that couch, just sitting. When I come in from work, he’s there. Sitting like his heart is breaking.”

  “I have to go, Muddie,” I said.

  I had to be off the phone, doing anything but talking to my sister, thinking about our father sitting, just sitting.

  She either didn’t hear me or ignored what I said. “It’s worse than when Elena left him. Oh, that reminds me! She’s back! I mean, she’s back in Fox Point. She got a divorce.” Muddie whispered the terrible word. “And her father won’t take her in. So she’s living with her sister. I ran into her yesterday; she’s still so beautiful…. Da knows she’s back, I can’t imagine a man feeling worse. I think he doesn’t care anymore what he does…. Say — have you heard from Jamie?”

  “How could I have heard — he doesn’t know where I am. Have you?”

  “No, not since he wrote and told us where he was. I look every day for a letter. I’ve written him every week — I’ll send you the address. Oh, I don’t want to use up your money. Good-bye, then, and I’ll tell Da you’re settled. He’ll be glad, no matter what he doesn’t say.”

  “Bye,” I said, then hung up the phone and reached for the teacup I’d balanced on the wide rolled back of the couch. As I stood, the phone cord scraped against the cup and I just barely caught it before it fell. The spoon slid off the saucer and I heard it clatter behind the couch.

  I put down the cup and the phone, happy I hadn’t stained the couch. I laid myself flat to fish for the spoon. I could see the glint of it and I stretched, fingers splayed, to find it. My cheek flat on the floor, I groped through the dark. My fingers slid over metal and I pulled it out.

  It wasn’t a spoon. It was a woman’s compact, slim and silver, something you could buy at Woolworth’s. That’s what I thought at first. I turned it over in my hands and felt the weight of it and realized it was expensive. I opened it and saw that the mirror was cracked. The powder had dried. I snapped it shut, turned it over, and saw the initials in curlicue script: B.W.
<
br />   It had belonged to the woman who’d lived here before. Or could it have been someone else, a woman Nate had brought here? Someone with a sophisticated name that clanged with brass. Barbara, or Brenda.

  I wasn’t very bright, but I was starting to get wise, just by keeping my ears open. I was beginning to realize how New York worked, how the men chased their secretaries or the Broadway dancers and brought them to discreet hotels or apartments they kept without their wife knowing. I figured Angela Benedict didn’t know about this apartment. And how would she find out, if she never left the house back in Providence?

  I leaned back into the pillows and looked out at the gathering dusk. I held the compact in my hand. Suddenly, I could feel someone else here, a presence. Another woman had sat here, had hung that mirror at an awkward height just so she could see the river. I shivered. I didn’t know why it should have spooked me, but it did. With the compact still in my hand, I went around the apartment and turned on all the lights.

  Chorus girls’ dressing rooms had their own rules and their own comradeship. We were there to make ourselves beautiful, borrow lipsticks, complain about our aching feet and our boyfriends. I’d noticed a certain frost in the air during my week of rehearsals, but after my debut on Saturday night, I settled into a chair at the mirror and felt the atmosphere shift. I hadn’t tripped into someone’s drink, I hadn’t lost my headdress in the “Hoop-De-Doo” number, and I hadn’t stolen the show. I was okay.

  At first, I hadn’t been able to attach names to faces. Polly, Mary, Edna, Darla, Mickey, Barb, Pat. But after a week I knew them all.

  “So how old are you, kid? Twenty-one, you say?”

  “Yeah, and you have the papers to prove it, right?”

  “Leave off the kid. I started when I was fifteen. Said I was eighteen.”

  “When was that, honey — in 1933?”

  “Hardey-har-har.”