City of Girls (16 page)

This would not be easily achieved, of course, given what we were accustomed to creating.

Billy had sat through a few nights of
Dance Away, Jackie!
and he made no secret of his disdain for our current troupe of players.

“They’re garbage, honey,” he said to Peg.

“Don’t butter me up,” she said. “I’ll think you’re trying to get me into bed.”

“They are twenty-four-carat garbage, and you know it.”

“Just give it to me straight, Billy. Stop flattering me.”

“The showgirls are fine as they are, because they don’t need to do anything other than look good,” he said. “So they can stay. The actors are vile, though. We’ll
need to get some new talent in here. The dancers are cute enough, and they all look like they come from bad families, which I
like
. . . but they’re so heavy on their feet. It’s assaulting. I love their tarty little faces, but let’s keep them in the background and bring in some real dancers to put up front—at least six. Right now, the only dancer I can stand to watch footing around the front of
the stage is that fairy, Roland. He’s terrific. But I need everyone else to be of his caliber.”

In fact, Billy was so impressed with Roland’s charisma that he’d initially wanted to give the boy a song of his own to sing, called “Maybe in the Navy”—a tune that would
seem
to be about a boy wanting to join the Navy in order to pursue a life of adventure, but would actually be a clever and veiled
reference to Roland’s very obvious homosexuality. (“I’m picturing something like ‘You’re the Top’” is how Billy had explained it to us. “You know, a suggestive little double entendre of a song.”) But Olive had instantly shut down the idea.

“Come now, Olive,” Peg had begged. “Let us do it. It’s funny. The women and children in the audience won’t catch the reference, anyhow. This is supposed to
be a racy story. Let’s allow things to be more
spirited
for once.”

“Too spirited for public consumption” was Olive’s verdict, and that was the end of it: Roland didn’t get his song.

Olive, I should say, was not happy about any of this.

She was the only person at the Lily who didn’t get caught up in Billy’s excitement. On the day he arrived, she commenced sulking, and the sulk never lifted.
The truth is, I was beginning to find Olive’s dourness awfully irritating. The constant niggling over every dime, the policing of sexually suggestive material, the slavish devotion to her rigid chain of habits, the way she gave Billy the brush on every clever idea he proposed, the constant fussbudgeting, and the general quashing of all fun and enthusiasm—it was just so tiresome.

For instance,
let’s consider Billy’s plan to hire six more dancers for the show than we normally had onstage. Peg was all for it, but Olive called the idea “a lot of fuss and feathers for nothing.”

When Billy argued that six more dancers would make the show feel more like a spectacle, Olive said, “Six more dancers adds up to money we don’t have, with no discernible difference to the play. Rehearsal salaries
alone are forty dollars a week. And you want six more of them? Where do you propose I get the funds for this?”

“You can’t make money without spending money, Olive,” Billy reminded her. “Anyway, I’ll spot you.”

“I like that idea even less,” Olive said. “And I don’t trust you to deliver. Remember what happened in Kansas City in 1933.”

“No, I don’t remember what happened in Kansas City in 1933,”
said Billy.

“Of course you don’t,” Peg put in. “What happened is that you left me and Olive holding the bag. We’d rented out that massive concert hall for the big song-and-dance spectacle you wanted me to produce, and you hired dozens of local performers, and you put everything in my name, and then you vanished to St. Tropez for a backgammon tournament. I
had to empty the company’s bank account
to pay it all back, while you and your money were nowhere to be found for three solid months.”

“Geez, Pegsy—you make it sound like I did something
wrong
.”

“No hard feelings, of course.” Peg gave a sardonic grin. “I know how you’ve always loved your backgammon. But Olive’s got a point. The Lily Playhouse is barely in the black as it is. We can’t go out on a limb for this production.”

“Naturally,
I’ll be disagreeing with you now,” said Billy. “Because if you ladies will go out on a limb for once, I can help you to create a show that people will actually want to
see
. When people want to
see
a show, it makes money. After all these years, I can’t believe I need to remind you of how the theater business works. Come on, Pegsy—don’t turn on me now. When a rescuer comes to save you, don’t shoot
arrows at him.”

“The Lily Playhouse doesn’t need rescuing,” said Olive.

“Oh, yes, it does, Olive!” said Billy. “Look at this theater! Everything needs to be repaired and updated. You’re still using gaslights, practically. Your seats are three-quarters empty every night. You need a
hit
. Let me make one for you. With Edna here, we have the chance. But we can’t go slack on any of it. If we get
some critics in here—and I
will
get critics in here—we can’t have the rest of the production looking ramshackle, compared to Edna. Come on, Pegsy—don’t be a coward. And remember—you won’t have to work as hard as usual with this play, because I’ll help you direct it, like we used to do. Come on, honey, take a chance. You can keep on producing your catchpenny little shows and creeping along toward
bankruptcy, or we can do something great here. Let’s do something great. You were always a reckless dame with a buck—let’s give it a go, one more time.”

Peg wavered. “Maybe we could hire just
four
additional dancers, Olive?”

“Don’t you let him Ritz you, Peg,” said Olive. “We can’t afford it. We can’t even afford two. I have the ledgers to prove it.”

“You worry too much about money, Olive,”
said Billy. “You always have. Money’s not the most important thing in the world.”

“Thus speaketh William Ackerman Buell III of Newport, Rhode Island,” said Peg.

“Give it a rest, Pegsy. You know I never cared about money.”

“That’s right, you never cared about money, Billy,” Olive said. “Certainly not to the extent that those of us who forgot to be born into wealthy families care about it. The
devil of it is—you make Peg not care about money, either. That’s how we’ve always run into trouble in the past, and I won’t let it happen again.”

“There’s always been plenty of money for all of us,” said Billy. “Stop being such a
capitalist,
Olive.”

Peg started laughing and stage-whispered to me: “Your Uncle Billy fancies himself a socialist, kiddo. But apart from the aspect of free love, I’m
not sure he understands its principles.”

“What do
you
think, Vivian?” asked Billy, noticing for the first time that I was in the room.

I felt deeply uncomfortable being pulled into this conversation. The experience was something akin to listening to my parents argue—except that there were
three
of them now, which was extra disconcerting. Certainly over the last few months I’d heard Peg and Olive
arguing about money plenty of times—but with the addition of Billy into the story, things had gotten more heated. Navigating a dispute between Peg and Olive I could handle, but Billy was the wild card. Every child learns to negotiate delicately between two bickering adults, after all, but among
three
? This was beyond my powers.

“I think you each make a strong argument,” I said.

This must have
been the wrong answer, because now they were all irritated with
me
.

In the end, they settled on hiring four additional dancers, with Billy picking up the tab. It was a decision that left nobody happy—which is what my father might have called a successful business negotiation. (“Everyone should leave the table feeling as if they’ve gotten a bad deal,” my father once taught me joylessly. “This
way, you may rest assured that nobody was taken for a ride, and that nobody can get too far ahead.”)

THIRTEEN

Here was another thing I noticed about the effect that Billy Buell had upon our little world: with his arrival at the Lily Playhouse, everyone started drinking more.

A whole hell of a lot more.

Having read this far, Angela, you may be wondering how it was physically possible for us to drink more than we already did, but here is the thing about drinking: one can always drink more,
if one is truly committed. It’s just a matter of discipline, really.

The big difference now was that Aunt Peg was drinking with us. Where once she’d stopped after a few martinis and had gone to bed at a reasonable time—as per Olive’s strict schedule—now she and Billy would head out together after the show and get three sheets to the wind. Every single night. Oftentimes Celia and I would join
them for a few drinks, before heading off to make revelry and trouble elsewhere.

If at first it seemed awkward for me to be gadding about town with my plainly dressed middle-aged aunt, the awkwardness soon faded
when I learned what a gas Peg could be in a nightclub—especially once she had a few drinks in her. Largely this was because Peg knew absolutely everybody in the entertainment business,
and they all knew her. And if they didn’t know Peg, then they knew Billy, and wanted to catch up with him after all these years. Which meant that drinks arrived at our table in snappy time—usually accompanied by the owner of the establishment, who often sat with us to gossip about Hollywood and Broadway.

Billy and Peg still looked so mismatched to me—he, so handsome in his white dinner jacket
and slicked-back hair, and she in her matronly B. Altman dress and no makeup whatsoever—but they were charming, and wherever we went they quickly ended up the center of any gathering.

And they lived large. Billy ordering up filet mignon and champagne (he often carelessly wandered away before it was time to eat the steak, but he never neglected to drink the champagne) and inviting everyone in
the room to join us. He talked nonstop about the show that he and Peg were producing, and what a smash hit it was going to be. (As he explained to me, this was a deliberate marketing tactic; he wanted to get word out that
City of Girls
was coming and that it would be good: “I have yet to meet the press agent who can spread gossip faster than I can do at a nightclub.”)

It was all fun, except for
one thing: Peg was always trying to be responsible and head home early, while Billy was always trying to get her to stay out late. I remember one night at the Algonquin when Billy said, “Would you like another drink, my wife?” and I saw a look of real pain cross Peg’s face.

“I shouldn’t,” she said. “It’s not good for me, Billy. Let me collect my thoughts for a moment and try to be sensible.”

“I didn’t ask if you
should
have a drink, Pegsy; I asked if you wanted one.”

“Well, of course I
want
one. I always want one. But make it a mild one, please.”

“Shall I cut to the chase and order you three mild ones at the same time?”

“Just one mild one after another, William. That’s how I like to live my life these days.”

“To your very good health,” he said, lifting his glass to toast her and
then waving to get the waiter’s attention. “As long as the man keeps ’em coming, I might be able to survive an evening of mild cocktails.”

That night, Celia and I peeled off from Billy and Peg, to go have our own adventures. When we stumbled home at our standard gauzy-gray presunrise hour, we were startled to find all the lights on in the living room, and an unexpected tableaux within. There
was Peg sprawled out on the couch—fully dressed, unconscious, and snoring. She had an arm flung over her face, and one of her shoes was kicked off. Billy, still wearing his white dinner jacket, was dozing in a chair next to her. On the table between them was a pile of empty bottles and full ashtrays.

Billy woke up when we walked in and said, “Oh, hello girls.” His voice was slurred, and his eyes
were Bing cherries.

“I’m sorry,” I said, in my own slurred voice. “Didn’t mean to disturb you.”

“You can’t disturb
her
.” Billy waved an arm vaguely in the direction of the couch. “She’s pickled. I couldn’t get her up the last flight of steps. Say, maybe you girls can help me . . . ?”

So the three of us drunks tried to help an even drunker person get upstairs to bed. Peg was not a small woman,
and we were not at our strongest or most graceful, so this was no easy operation. We more or less dragged her up the stairs the way you would transport a rolled-up carpet—thumping our way along until we reached the door to the
fourth-floor apartments. I’m afraid we laughed like sailors on leave the whole time. I’m also afraid that was an uncomfortable trip for Peg—or that it would have been uncomfortable,
had she been conscious.

And then we opened the door and there was Olive—the last face you want to see when you are at your drunkest and most guilty.

In one glance, Olive took in the situation. Not that it was difficult to read.

I expected her to strike out in anger, but instead she dropped to her knees and cradled Peg’s head. Olive looked up at Billy, and her face was overcome with sorrow.

“Olive,” he said. “Hey. Look. You know how it is.”

“Please get me a wet towel, someone,” she asked in a low voice. “A cold one.”

“I wouldn’t know how to do
that,
” said Celia, sliding down the wall.

I ran into the bathroom and flopped about until I could solve the problem of how to turn on a light, how to procure a towel, how to turn on a tap, how to discern hot water from cold, how to soak the
towel without also soaking myself (I utterly failed at that step), and how to find my way out of the bathroom again.

By the time I got back, Edna Parker Watson had joined the scene (wearing an adorable red silk pajama set and a lush gold dressing gown, I couldn’t help but notice) and was now helping Olive drag Peg into her apartment. The women, I’m sorry to say, looked as though they had done
this before.

Edna took the damp towel from me and pressed it against Peg’s forehead. “Come now, Peg, let’s wake up now.”

Billy was standing back a bit, wavering on his feet, looking green around the gills. He looked his age, for once.

“She just wanted to have some fun,” he said weakly.

Olive stood up and said—again, in that low voice—“You always do
this to her. You always give her the spur
when you know she needs the reins.”

Billy looked for a moment as if he were going to apologize, but then made the classic drunkard’s mistake, instead, of digging in. “Ah, don’t blow your lid about it. She’ll be all right. She just wanted to have a few more when we got home.”

“She’s not
like
you,” Olive said, and unless I was mistaken, her eyes were sprinkled with tears. “She can’t stop after
ten drinks. She never could.”

Edna said gently, “I think it’s time for you to go, William. You, as well, girls.”

The next day, Peg stayed in bed until late afternoon. But aside from that, business went on as usual, and nobody mentioned what had transpired the evening before.

And by the
next
night, Peg and Billy were out at the Algonquin all over again, buying rounds for the whole house.