Strings Attached (9 page)

“It’s all right, sweetie,” Barb said. “Mr. D likes to meet the new girls.”

Darla frowned. “Did you wear a good dress to work? If you go up to the lounge, you should look like a glamour-puss.”

I shook my head.

“Don’t worry, we’ve got a few numbers stashed here for cases like this.”

Within a few minutes, I’d squeezed into a flame-colored brocade cocktail dress.

“Sonia, don’t we have matching shoes for these somewhere?” Pat called, searching on the shelves. “Kit, what size are you?”

“Seven,” Sonia answered, giving me a pair of matching shoes. “Mr. Benedict asked your size just the other day.”

“I hope he went to I. Miller,” Darla said. She handed me the shoes.

Why had Nate asked my shoe size? And why did he feel so free to talk to Sonia? Was he that much of an insider at
the club? I thought uneasily of the clothes and shoes Nate had brought. Had he told me the truth about them?

“Don’t look so nervous.” Polly grinned at me. Without her makeup on, she looked freckled and young, her hair swept back and tucked behind her ears. “Mr. D’s not a wolf, he’s a family man, so you don’t have to worry about that. Just have a club soda. It’ll take ten minutes, tops. He’ll slip you a ten spot for the cab home, too.”

Darla and Mickey and Polly patted and primped me and sent me up the back stairs with a gentle push. They watched like a trio of aunts as I hesitated on the landing, then made shooing motions with their hands until I kept going, up the last flight, down the threadbare green carpet, straight to the lounge.

 

Cigarette smoke swirled in the dim light. A trio softly played “What Did I Do.”

Mr. D was across the room at a small table, bald spot shining, one hand waving a cigar held down low in the V of his thick short fingers. There was a dapper man sitting with him, his hair combed straight back, smoking a cigarette. I saw the singer Johnnie Ray sitting with the comedian Jerry Temple. Other famous faces were sprinkled around, people I knew from reading the gossip columns — debutantes and society folks. It was
Manhattan Merry-Go-Round
come to life, and I had a fierce wish that Muddie were here with me. I felt unsteady in the unfamiliar heels and my own nervousness.

A hand grazed my arm, then pressed it. I turned and saw Nate.

“I saw the show tonight,” he told me. “You were good.”

“Thanks.”

“Now there are just a few things I need you to do.”

Not again. I had handed off the suitcase a week ago, and Nate had dropped off a package last week that I had to give to a large man with a nose like a sweet potato. I didn’t know what had happened to his promise to leave me alone.

“I’m supposed to sit with Mr. D —”

“Don’t worry about Mr. D.”

Nate said it with such authority that it took me aback for a moment, and I realized that I didn’t know who was really in charge here.

He gestured to my right, at a table well away from the band. I instantly recognized the man sitting there — Dex Hamilton, the columnist. There was a microphone on a stand on his table, and he was talking to the singer Dinah Shore. He ran a radio show right from this room, three nights a week, called
Nightlife After Dark.
Dinah Shore moved away, Mr. D nodded at him, and Dex beckoned me.

I pointed to my chest, as if to say,
Who, me?
Yes, me.

He beckoned more frantically while he spoke into the microphone, and I quickly moved through the tables. I’d been on the radio plenty of times in Providence, but this was New York, and it was Dex Hamilton, who was almost as big as Walter Winchell when it came to selling papers.

“And now, ladies and gentlemen, here’s the newest Lido Doll, Miss Kit Corrigan. Miss Corrigan is five feet five inches of sheer redheaded pulchritude. She just walked in the room and three guests here at the Lido Lounge had to check their blood pressure. Heh. Heh. How are you tonight, Miss Corrigan?”

He had a certain way of talking, somewhere between New Yorkese and trying to sound like a swell.
How’re yautawnight, Miss Carrigawn?

I leaned over the mike. I knew exactly what to say, which was a whole lot of nothing. “I’m just fine, Mr. Hamilton.”

“And how are you enjoying the Lido?”

“I’m having such a good time. All the girls are so sweet, and I love the routines.”

“Keeping the wolves at bay?”

“Oh, that’s easy enough,” I said. “Most of them don’t have teeth.”

“Well, hehhehheh. Watch out, gentlemen of New York, Miss Kit Corrigan’s got moxie. Ladies and gentlemen, that was the newest Lido Doll, Miss Kit Corrigan, and I see Jerry Temple heading over….”

He winked at me, and I gave him a big smile. He’d mentioned my name five times in less than thirty seconds. That was a true professional.

Nate led me away with a hand at my elbow. The man sitting at Mr. D’s table rose and moved away. He looked familiar, but I couldn’t place him.

“Who is that?” I asked Nate as we moved through the crowd.

“Frank Costello,” he said.

“The gangster?”

“Well, that’s what the papers say.”

As Frank Costello passed, he put his hand on Nate’s shoulder for a moment and whispered something in his ear. He moved so fluidly that people at the tables probably didn’t see it; they thought he was just trying to get around us.

“You know him?” I asked.

“We’ve met, yes. Come on, Kit. Don’t look so shocked. This is New York. All kinds of people come to the Lido. Now you just have to say hello to Mr. Dawber. He expects a few minutes.”

I looked behind me, but Frank Costello was just walking out the door. The most famous gangster in America didn’t look at Dex Hamilton, and Dex pretended to look down at his notes.
If you’re a gossip columnist, you don’t write about Costello,
I guessed. I’d heard rumors from the girls that the gangster was a partner in the club. I just hadn’t believed them. And Nate knew him.

We approached the table, and Mr. D halfway raised up and then crashed back down on his chair even as he signaled for another drink. He wasn’t interested in me a bit, I could see that right away. He looked around the room, waved at a customer, then twisted his chair to talk to someone at the next table. Nate pulled out a chair for me.

“What will you have?” he asked.

I had to lean in to hear him. “Club soda will be fine.” A flashbulb popped, and I recognized Gloria DeHaven at the next table. Across the room, Jimmy Durante lifted his glass to her. Stars. I was in the middle of it. This was exactly what I’d dreamed of back in Providence, lying on my bed with a movie magazine, dreaming over pictures. Why did I just want to go home?

I sipped at the club soda. Mr. D wasn’t even trying to talk to me. He was completely turned around, talking to someone behind him. I was just here to decorate the table for a few minutes.

I suddenly remembered that Hank had said he might come by to walk me home. I wondered if he’d wait. I wondered if it was too soon to leave.

The band swung into an easy, jazzy version of “It’s Been a Long, Long Time,” and a few couples were on the tiny dance floor.

“Dance with me,” Nate said, leaning over.

“I’ve been dancing all night,” I said. I tried to stall by taking out my compact, the silver one I’d found. I’d gone to the drugstore for fresh powder for it.

To my surprise, Nate took it from my hand. He turned it over. “Pretty.”

“I found it in the apartment. The girl who lived there before… during the war. The Warwicks.”

“The mirror’s cracked.” He snapped it shut but didn’t give it back. “I can get it fixed for you.”

“No, thanks.” I took it from his hand. “I thought I might send it back to her. Did she leave a forwarding address?”

“No. It was the war years. People came and went. How about that dance?” He stood.

I wanted to say no. But he was standing, his hand was out, and I was sitting at the table with my boss. I had to do it.

“Go ahead, doll, Nate is a classy guy,” Mr. D said, his first words to me since I’d sat down. “Then you can head home and lap up a nice glass of warm milk like a good kitty.”

Nate put his hand on the small of my back. His touch was barely there. The back of the dress was low, and if he moved his thumb an inch he’d feel bare skin. But he kept his hand where it was. I didn’t think I could stand it if he did. I thought of dancing with Billy, how he’d run his finger along the line of my dress, sometimes insinuating a finger between the fabric and my skin, and rubbing gently.

His voice was close to my ear.

“I like your hair that way. How come you didn’t wear the dress I brought you? The black one?”

“I had to borrow a dress from one of the girls.”

“I’d like to see you in that black dress.”

We were dancing to a song for sweethearts. It had been a hit right after the war, with all the soldiers coming home to their girlfriends and wives. I could see the other couple leaning into each other, the woman’s eyes closed as she breathed in the scent of her love. I knew what that was like.
It’s been a long, long time, Billy,
I thought, and I had to close my eyes because thinking of him made me feel as though my insides were scooped out of me. I felt hollow, a girl in heels moving to music she didn’t feel, dancing with a man she didn’t want to dance with.

“You see that man, the one in the gray suit and red tie, at the table next to ours?”

He moved me around so I could look over his shoulder. “Yes.”

“Name is Ray Mirto. He’s a regular. You should start getting to know the regulars. See the men with him?”

“I see them.” They looked all the same to me, like Ray Mirto, men with too much weight on them and red-flushed faces.

His hand tightened on mine. “Pay attention. The guy with his back to you? That’s Joe Adonis.”

I knew that name; he was almost as notorious as Frank Costello. I looked at Ray Mirto as he lit a cigarette. He was laughing, leaning over to light his companion’s cigarette. He put his arms across the back of the booth as if he owned it. I could see that he was talking loudly. One of the men leaned forward as if speaking to him in a low tone, and he waved him off. He looked like he thought he
was the life of the party, but he was the only one who thought so.

Mr. D had left our table. The waiter had already put down an ashtray and a fresh drink for Nate. I watched as he unfurled a napkin and quickly polished the table. I worked in nightclubs, I knew that waiters didn’t move that fast and mop up a dry table for just anybody. Nate seemed to know everyone, from Mr. D to Dex Hamilton to Frank Costello. How could he know who the regulars were if he wasn’t one himself?

I felt sick and dizzy, and the noise and the smoke felt as though they were swirling inside my head. I didn’t understand any of this. Why had Frank Costello stopped to talk to Nate? He was a Providence lawyer. Why would Frank Costello even know him? What wasn’t Nate telling me? Plenty, that was for sure.

What had he said when he came to the apartment?
I was coming to New York — I have a new client here….

Who was his new client? One of the “regulars”? Or Frank Costello?

“I have to go,” I said. “It’s been a long night.”

“I’ll see you home.”

“No, I like walking.” I couldn’t wait to get away. I stepped away from him and started across the dance floor. I heard someone call his name, and I took the lapse in his attention to make my way to the door. I ran down the carpeted stairs. The girls had left my camel coat right on the rack by the private door to the street, the one only celebrities and regulars knew about. I threw it on and ran out.

The cold night air hit me hard.

“Kit!”

I turned. Hank was walking toward me. He looked cold, his hands in his pockets.

“You’re still here,” I said. I was so grateful I could have kissed him.

“I thought I’d missed you.” He pointed to the unmarked door. “What’s that?”

“The private door to the lounge. I had to go see the boss. I can’t believe you’re here. You’ll fall asleep in class tomorrow.”

“I have study hall first period. I can sleep.”

We began to walk, and I nudged him with my shoulder. “Hanging around with chorus girls, at your age,” I teased. “Young man, you are running wild.”

“What are you talking about?” He nudged me back. “I’m with the girl next door.”

We swung into step together, our hands in our pockets. The cold air and Hank’s presence chased away my apprehension about what had happened in the lounge. We reached the corner. The light was red, and we stopped as a taxi glided by. It was so quiet — quiet enough that I was able to hear the door open behind us. I looked back. Nate was standing in the doorway. He looked one way, then the other. Then he saw me.

He held my gaze and nodded. I couldn’t look away. Then the light changed, Hank stepped off the curb, and I snapped my head away and kept on going.

Eleven

 

New York City
November 1950

Dear Kit,
I don’t know what you’re doing for Thanksgiving,
but Da and I would like you to come home. I’ll meet
you at the train.
Love, Muddie
ps. please come

 

I held the letter in my hand. Home. If Billy got his furlough, we could take the train together. The first car, so we could stand in front and see the future rushing at us. The longing to see him was growing every moment I was without him.

I read the letter again and put it down on the dresser. I kept my earrings there, tiny pearls that Billy had bought me for my birthday last year. Funny, I thought I’d left them by the lamp, but they were lined up right there.

I opened the top drawer. A tumble of lingerie, the things Nate had brought that I couldn’t quite bring myself to wear. It seemed too intimate, somehow. Every time I saw them I blushed, wondering if Nate had peeked in the boxes.

Hadn’t I left the slip on top? I’d tucked my own underthings to the side, and the black slip had been so pretty I’d folded it on top of the bras and panty girdles that I didn’t wear anyway. My own garter belts were tossed in the corner.

I stared down at the tumble of elastic, rayon, and silk.

I figured I had to be mistaken. I wasn’t a neat person. What made me think I knew exactly how I folded underwear?

Uneasily, I shut the drawer.

 

Instead of wearing a skirt the next day, I pulled on my old dungarees and sneakers. I looked in the mirror as I brushed my hair, about to twist it into the Lido Doll upsweep.
I like your hair that way.

I left it down. What was so bad about looking seventeen?

I was on Second Avenue, carrying home a grocery sack, when I saw a tall, striking girl walking ahead of me. Something about the swing of her hips was familiar, the lazy way she walked, the gesture of flipping her long, curly hair over a shoulder.

“Daisy?”

She turned. It took her a moment, but then she smiled. “It’s the kid from Providence. How are you, Kit?” She strode forward and kissed me on the cheek, and for a moment we greeted each other like long-lost friends, words tumbling over each other, not giving each other a chance to answer —
What are you doing here, Well, I never, How absolutely lovely to run into you.

We’d been in summer stock together, but she’d been the star ingenue and I’d worked in the box office and been in the chorus. I was surprised at how warmly she greeted me, but I’d also grown used to the fact that I’d joined a family when I’d joined the theater, and here I was, running into a glamorous cousin.

“I’m just on my way to work,” she said, making a face. “My parents cut me off, the dears, so I’ve got rent to pay. It’s not bad — I start after lunch, so I can still make some morning rounds. I just came from the most
horrific
audition. What are you up to?”

“I’m working at the Lido,” I said.

“A Lido Doll?” Daisy whistled under her breath. “Nice going. Pretty soon we’ll be seeing you in Hollywood. Say, why don’t we grab some coffee and have a gossip? I have about twenty minutes. Did you hear Jeff Toland is making a movie with Jennifer Jones? Remember how we all thought his career was over? Including him?” She laughed.

“My place is near here,” I said. “I just bought some coffee.”

“Perfectly perfect. I’m yours.” Daisy followed me back down the avenue. “I’m over on the West Side. I have two roommates, and one is completely horrific, but she just got engaged, so she’s hardly ever there. Hey, do you miss it, though? I mean, the theater. You were such a great dancer. Isn’t the Lido mostly —” And she mimed walking, showing off a leg, and balancing something on her head at the same time. I burst out laughing. It wasn’t exactly true, but it made me realize that once I’d learned which way to dip and when to turn, it wasn’t exactly challenging.

“Well, I’m still dancing,” I said. “Being a Lido girl is every girl’s dream, right?”

Daisy snorted. “We get our dreams told to us. Girls. Every day. Life isn’t a Palmolive ad. Take my mother. Her dream is me, married, in Connecticut, with a baby on the way. Not mine, though. That’s why I’m selling dresses at Bonwit’s. The dresses are divine — I just wish I could afford them.” She gave my coat a critical look. “If I’m not mistaken, that’s one of ours. And from this season, too. Nice goods.” I could see the speculation in her eyes.

Hadn’t Nate said the clothes were from a year ago? I remembered that he’d asked Sonia my shoe size, and the lie smoothly clicked into place in my mind. He had lied about the clothes; he had bought them himself. But why? So I could look good enough for his son? It gave me an uneasy feeling, which was made even uneasier when Daisy strode past me into the foyer of my apartment and whistled softly.

“Nice,” she said. “You’re here all alone? Hey, if you ever need a roommate…”

I walked back to the kitchen and started to make coffee. I could feel Daisy’s curiosity propel her around the kitchen, as she studied the china and silver. Just last summer I’d arrived in Cape Cod with a cheap suitcase and a wardrobe that I’d dressed up with cheap scarves and bracelets. How could I afford this? I bent over the percolator, blind with shame. I hadn’t thought about how it would feel to invite someone over, someone who knew me.

Daisy’s parents had cut her off, and she was making her way alone, and she had found a way to pay for an apartment and still go on auditions. Nate had offered me an easy way, and I’d taken it. I’d been so afraid of failure that I’d taken the first hand held out to me. I had no one to blame but myself. I couldn’t even blame Nate, even though I wanted to.

I could have said no. I could have found another way.

And the worst part was, I wasn’t doing what I’d come to do. I didn’t care about Hollywood casting agents. I cared about the stage. I remembered the deep pleasure I got every single time I signed in at the stage door, even for a turkey like
That Girl From Scranton!

I put a cup of coffee down in front of her. She took a sip and said, “Not bad. Beats drugstore coffee. Listen, as soon as I get a paycheck, I’ll spring for lunch at Child’s. I’ve got a friend who’s a waitress there — another actress, of course. She puts whipped cream on my coffee. Nice big dollop. We’ll go — it’s divine.”

Whipped cream plopped on a cup of coffee. I remembered the memory then, the first time I’d met Florence. The first time I’d seen Billy. And Delia fighting tears, and Da not knowing where to look. So many things had happened that night, but all I’d been thinking about was the roar of applause I’d gotten, and how right I’d felt standing on a stage.

“You’re right — being a Lido Doll isn’t my dream,” I told Daisy. “I just got lucky, and there I was, so I took it. But I miss Broadway. I want… I want to be an actress.” There was a guilty sound to my voice, as if I’d just confessed that I wanted to rob a bank.

Daisy nodded thoughtfully while she blew out a plume of smoke. “You were pretty good last summer when we ran lines. Look, if that’s what you want, you’ve got to study. Go downtown to the Actors Studio and audition. Or find a teacher who will take you on. Just do something. I can get you in to see Stella; she’ll take a look at you. Listen, are you still making the rounds?”

“The rehearsals were taking up all my time, and I do three shows a night, and —”

“And you’re beat. Sure.” Daisy squinted at me, then tilted her head. “Listen, they’re casting a new musical. That’s the audition I just came from. There’s a part for you — a speaking part, just a couple of lines. It’s not Shaw, for crissakes, you can absolutely do it. I just read for it, but I’m all wrong, I might as well face it. I can’t act sixteen — those days are long gone.” She rolled her eyes. “They’re looking for a gamine type — young, a little mischievous looking, tomboyish, you know? She’s the little sister of the lead. You want the address?”

“I don’t have any head shots.”

“So? That’s not a reason not to go. Get some made — you can drop them off later.” Daisy quickly scribbled down an address. “It’s a rehearsal hall on the West Side. If you leave right now you can make it.”

“But I’m not dressed, or made up.”

“What are you wearing, dungarees? Perfect. Too bad your hair is so long, but you still look the part. Maybe put it in a ponytail. Don’t even put on makeup. Anyway, go. And remember me when you’re famous!”