Strings Attached (4 page)

Four

 

New York City
October 1950

I heard the piano music in my dreams. He played early in the mornings, probably before school, and I was half awake. I started thinking of him as Mr. Broadway. He’d play a classical number, something I didn’t recognize, of course, and then he’d swing into “Embraceable You” or “I Could Write a Book.”

I’d lie in bed, listening, and for a while the piano would chase away the blues. I was out of work, and even though I didn’t have to pay rent, I needed money for food and stockings and toothpaste. I was getting down to my last dime, and it was plenty thin. I’d been hoping to step into another chorus job, but none of my auditions had panned out. Today I would look for a waitress job to tide me over. I tried not to think of this as defeat. Plenty of girls had jobs and managed to take classes and go on auditions, too.

I was up and circling want ads when the phone rang. I didn’t want to answer the phone, afraid it would be Nate, but I was waiting for a callback. If you’re a dancer, you’ve got to pick up the phone.

“This isn’t about Billy, so don’t blow up at me,” Nate said. “I know that your play closed. I’ve got a job lead for
you.” He talked fast, like he was afraid I’d hang up. Before I did, he said, “At the Lido.”

“A nightclub?” I said this automatically, even though my heart raced at the sound of the name.

“Not just a nightclub. The Lido. You know what that means.”

I knew. The Lido was class. The girls on the line were chosen as much for their elegance as their legs. Frank Sinatra played the Lido, Ethel Merman, Johnnie Ray, all the big names. And Hollywood movie scouts constantly dropped in, looking for the girl who stood out, the one they’d offer a Hollywood contract to. Lido girls were on the cover of
Life
and
Look,
they were in Walter Winchell’s and Cholly Knickerbocker’s columns.

“Why are you doing this?” I asked.

“Because you need a job.”

“You can’t just fix everything, you know.”

“Don’t make a federal case. I’ve got a new client in New York, he’s got a connection, I heard something, I’m passing it along. Look, the auditions are going to be on Friday. If you go tomorrow, you can get a jump on the competition. Just go see Ted Roper — he’s in charge of the shows. Two o’clock tomorrow. He’s expecting you. All I can do is get you in the door. I can’t get you the job, so relax.”

Nate hung up with a soft click. No chance for me to say no. It was like he knew whatever I’d say would be a waste of his time. He knew I wouldn’t turn this down. He knew I’d be crazy to say no.

I didn’t like him knowing all that. I didn’t like how staying here suddenly made me available to him whenever he felt like calling. I hadn’t counted on that.

 

I didn’t have cab fare, so I’d have to walk to the Lido. When I got to First Avenue, I picked up a newspaper from the corner store. I flipped the paper in half so that I couldn’t see the screaming headline
allies push on Pyongyang, fighting still heavy.
I wouldn’t read the war news, but I’d need to skim the want ads if the audition didn’t work out.

The owner took my nickel and smiled. “You’re back!”

“Back?”

He looked at me closer. “Oh, sorry. I thought I recognized you. Enjoy your day, miss.”

I tucked the paper under my arm and headed west toward Second Avenue. One thing I hadn’t realized about New York was that it was a city of neighborhoods, and not just big ones, like Greenwich Village, but tiny ones, made up of just blocks. You went to the stores right near your apartment, and after a while people knew you. Soon that man would know my face and not confuse me with anyone else. Then I’d feel at home.

 

Nightclubs shouldn’t be seen in daylight. I loved being in a theater at any hour, loved it especially in the daytime, with its smell of coffee and cigarettes and dust, but the glamorous nightclub I’d read about for so long and dreamed about just looked dingy and sad when the sun was up. It smelled like watered-down drinks with cigarette butts swirling in them, a bunch of sour reminders from four in the morning.

A man checking receipts at the front told me to go on through to the dressing rooms, so I headed for the stage. The floors were being cleaned, and the furniture had been shifted around into clumps. Chairs and tables seemed to conspire against me on the way. I slammed a hip into a chair back, then bounced off the edge of a table.

“Doesn’t bode well for the dance routines,” a man said. But he smiled at me in a friendly way.

“Don’t tell the dance captain,” I said.

“Good smile.” He wasn’t flirting, he was judging. “Joe didn’t say you were a redhead.”

I didn’t know who Joe was, but I said, “Born with it, sorry to say.”

“It’s okay, kid, you’ve got a look. I’m Greg. I’ll be playing your music.”

“Kit Corrigan.”

“So you want to be a Lido Doll, huh?”

“Doesn’t everyone?”

“I’ll tell Ted you’re here.”

A tall, thin man in horn-rimmed glasses and khakis walked out onstage. He looked like a professor, but I could tell he was a dancer from the way he moved, elegant and easy. “This the girl?”

Yeah, I was the girl. I was used to being
the girl.
I was used to the look he was giving me right now, sizing me up. Not in a personal way, in a way you’d size up a horse if you were a jockey.

“Did you bring rehearsal clothes?”

I nodded.

He hadn’t introduced himself, but he was obviously Ted Roper, and I was expected to know that. “Let’s see if you can dance. You can change in the dressing room.”

I knew about nerves, and I could make them work for me, but I felt rattled by Ted Roper’s obvious irritation. Maybe he was ticked off that Nate had pulled strings to get me in to audition early.

In the dressing room, an ashtray full of cigarette stubs sat beneath a NO SMOKING sign. The lightbulbs in the wire cages washed out my skin. I fumbled in my purse for rouge. I pushed aside bobby pins, a comb, and a lipstick to clear a space on the counter. Quickly, I wriggled out of my skirt. I was already wearing my leotard. It was cold, so I kept on my sweater and tied a scarf tightly around my waist.

A stout woman with iron-gray hair came in, her broad hands full of an explosion of tulle. The wardrobe mistress, I guessed.

“Audition?” she asked in some kind of European accent. I nodded while I patted on a little rouge. She dumped the skirts on a table next to a sewing machine. “You should wear higher heels. What are you, a seven?”

“Yes …”

She walked over to a shelf full of shoes — pumps, sandals, gold and silver and an array of colors. She slammed a pair of black pumps on the counter. “Use these.”

I slipped out of my own scuffed shoes and into the higher heels. I straightened my shoulders and looked at myself in the mirror.

Back in Providence, Florence Foster, my dance teacher, had taught me everything, including how to walk. I’d been studying dance since I was eight. By the time I turned fourteen, she was telling me that I’d have to leave town. “You’re not getting anywhere in Providence, dolly,” Flo had told me. “Shake the dust of this town off your shoes and get yourself to Manhattan. White mink and diamonds, kid. That’s the big time. Don’t ask me if I think
you should. And don’t come by and say good-bye. Just drop me a postcard.”

Now I heard her croaking voice in my head.
It’s not just the feet, it’s the arms, it’s the neck, it’s the goddamn elbows and the goddamn knees. Keep your face strong. Don’t simper like an idiot beauty queen. You’re a dancer. A dancer. Got it? You can’t forget about your pinky finger, for godsake, you’ve got to know what every muscle is doing, even your eyebrows. You’re a dancer.

I’m a dancer,
I told myself.

“No time to be late,” the heavyset woman said. “He’s waiting to see how fast you dress. Around here, the clock hands move for Ted.”

“Thanks. And thanks for the shoes.”

I hurried back onstage, but I was careful to slow down as I got close. I knew he’d be watching how I walked.

The trick to auditions? You’ve got to not mind that they’re bored, or that they’re thinking about the last girl, or that they’re dying for a smoke. You’ve got to think about your own joy.

So I danced. He threw combinations at me, and I kept up. It was like he wanted a reason to flunk me, just like old Mrs. Babbitt back in American History.

But he couldn’t.
There’s nobody I can’t please. Nobody.

Finally, he signaled for Greg to stop playing.

“So,” Ted Roper said, “you can dance.”

I waited.

“Three shows a night — I presume you know that? You come at six thirty and you get out at three a.m. And you have to be available for promotional pictures during the day, or special shows. You’re a replacement, so you’ve got to catch up fast. You’ll work with me for the rest of the week.”

“Yes, Mr. Roper.”

“You might as well see Sonia now — she’s the wardrobe mistress. She’ll tell you about your fittings. And hair. Every girl wears an upsweep. You’ll have to handle some headpieces in that dance.”

“That’s not a problem.”

“It better not be. Dress rehearsals on Saturday — look at the schedule in the dressing room after you talk to Sonia. If you’re late for dress, even a minute, I dock your pay.”

He looked at me over his eyeglasses. I didn’t see contempt anymore, just … what? Like he felt sorry for me? “One more thing. I don’t stick my nose into the personal lives of my girls. But there’s no special treatment, no matter whose friend you are. Got it?”

“I’ve got it, Mr. Roper.”

“All right, Miss Corrigan, you’re hired.”

When I walked out of that place an hour later I wasn’t just another pretty girl. I was a Lido Doll. I was somebody in New York City. I could feel my whole body adjust to the change. I used my hips in my walk now, challenging every man on the street not to notice me. They all did. When I smiled at a businessman walking by, he couldn’t stop looking and slammed right into a mailbox.

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:

C
ORRIGAN
T
RIPLET
G
ROWS
U
P
S
WELL
C
ROONER

 

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.