Ten Cents a Dance (16 page)

I put it over okay. Better than okay, actually. The telephone company, I told Ma, wanted us to look nice. It was a rule. And I was the only girl whose mother wouldn't let her wear makeup.

In the end, she agreed to powder and lipstick. Pink or coral, nothing dark. Yes, Ma, I said.

As far as the war, everything was unsure. Depending on who was talking, it would be over in a few weeks or would go on forever. Flags flew up and down the streets. Boys from all over Chicago lined up at recruiting offices to volunteer. Stan Dudek and Charlie Baczewski had both dropped out of school to sign up; others from our neighborhood, too. I knew I should be ashamed that Paulie wouldn't be going to fight. I wasn't. I was glad.

In the dance hall, the Chinese customers had a hard time. Some of the girls who usually danced with them wouldn't anymore, and the other customers gave them the stink-eye. The week after Pearl Harbor, a Lithuanian who'd been nipping from a hip flask all night knocked a cup of coffee onto a Chinese man's lap, saying, "Dirty skunk, go back to Japan!"

"I not from Japan, I spit on Japan!" the Chinese hollered. "You so stupid, you go back to Poland!" Well, of course that got the Poles and the Lithuanians mad, because they hate each other, and before you could blink, six or eight Slavs were swinging away at three Chinese, who swung right back. We girls jumped up on chairs or scrambled onto the counter to
get
a good view. There were a couple of good sluggers in the mix, but for my money, Del took the prize. He threw off his coat, rolled up his sleeves, and waded right into the thick of it. Between him and O'Malley, it took only a few minutes until the last of the contenders got a boot down the stairs. The band played right through it. Ozzie told me later that Hamp, the band leader, figured it was his job to play the music. If customers wanted to fight instead of dance, that was between them and Del.

After that, the Chinese stayed away. It wasn't just us; we heard it was the same at taxi-dance halls all over the city.

"If only the flips would scram, too," Nora said, "I'd be happy as a clam."

"That just shows how ignorant you are," I said. "Don't you know the Pinoys hate the Japanese as much as we do?" Last night at Lily's, Manny had been in such a blue funk, worried about his family, that he wouldn't dance. He sat at the table and drank whiskeys, one after another, getting more and more broody until finally he wouldn't talk even to Alonso.

"Hey, Cinderella, that boyfriend of yours know you date flips on the side?" Yvonne said.

I smiled at her. "He knows what the racket is." Chew on that, I thought, and I hope you bust a tooth. Actually it was getting kind of thorny, juggling Ma and Betty and the Starlight and my fish and Paulie—more and more, I felt like I was being pulled in a dozen different directions at once. I remembered how none of Yvonne's four fish knew about any of the others. Not for the first time, I wondered how she managed that.

"Any of you who don't want to dance with Orientals don't have to," Peggy said. "But did you stop to think that if they stay away, that's less dough for all of us?"

"The only thing I stopped to think is that any Jap can come in here and call himself a Chinaman and none of us would know the difference." Yvonne slipped a heel on one foot, balancing on the other.

"What on earth would they do that for?" Alice asked.

"So they could spy what Yvonne stuffs into her bra," I called. The whole Ladies' erupted in laughter, a few scandalized
oooohs.
For a second, Yvonne got the swallowed-knife look again, and her neck flushed red. So I was right. I didn't think she'd been working just what God gave her. I walked past her in my bra and girdle, then leaned down to a mirror and pretended to check my makeup. Let her see what a set of real tits looked like.

Aside from the Chinese, the war made other changes at the Starlight. The first was that every granddad suddenly remembered all his doings in the Great War. You'd see a girl trapped in the lounge, looking desperate, some geezer waving his hands in her face: "And then what do you think we did? We marched right back
up
that hill . . ."

"If another grayhair tells me one more story about his dysentery, I'm going straight home to blow my brains out," I told Ozzie.

"You should hear Hamp," he said. "Every word out of his mouth is either
foot rot or trenches.
Or both."

I'd started spending some of my breaks in the little back room. Not all the time, not even regular. A week or two might go by. Then a night would come when I wanted nothing more than to close my eyes and listen to Ozzie work out a new solo. Since he'd taken my advice and landed Ophelia—by New Year's she was kissing him behind the bandstand at Lily's—Ozzie was about the only person who didn't want something from me. Him, and maybe Peggy.

I never stayed the whole break. One cigarette, that was all. I didn't want him to think I was a nuisance. At first I only listened. Then, after a while, we started talking. He told me he'd started playing trumpet when he was nine. Moved to Chicago last year, when he was sixteen. The Starlight was his first gig.

"But if you hate it here so much," I said, "why don't you just work at Lily's?"

"This here is rent money," he said. "Lily's don't pay. That's where I'm developing my sound."

I'd never known anyone who'd developed anything. Ozzie talked about someday playing the Savoy in New York, the Century Room in Kansas City.

"Kansas City!" I said, and laughed. "What's in Kansas City?"

"See, this is what I mean. Chicks don't know nothing about music. Some cats who are hot in Harlem can't keep up in Kansas City. You hold your own in K.C., you can go anywhere."

I told him I'd settle for a flat that didn't build up ice on the inside of its windows. Stubbed out my cigarette, then went back to the floor. Night after night, I waltzed and single-footed, and listened to war stories smiling, and collected my nickels one at a time. Once I got a hundred dollars saved, I figured I'd have enough to get us out of the Yards.

Then came the boys in uniform, and the dance hall turned upside down.

Not just Chicago boys, either. These fellows came from all over, and they came in every stripe. Army privates in their khakis, navy sailors in their blues. Every one of them pressed and starched, fresh out of basic training and turned loose for two days, sometimes three, sometimes a week, before shipping out. If they weren't all handsome, at least they were all eager to have a good time. Happy as I was that Paulie was safe, still it thrilled me to see those boys.

The regular customers weren't thrilled a bit. The young bucks were horning in on their turf. They especially didn't like how the boys tipped. Spoiling us girls, they complained to Del. They claimed we sulked unless we got at least a dime tip, where before we were happy with a nickel. Well, that was true. So what? The boys treated us good and we liked it. Go figure.

Del kept an eye out, made sure we weren't turning our backs on the regulars, that we still treated them okay. Other than that, he didn't do much. The recruits rolled into Chicago by the trainload. Del put the steer to some of the cabbies, then sat back and raked it in.

Sure, a few of the recruits were obnoxious. Tried to feel us up, that sort of thing. Nothing worse than the worst regulars. The big difference was, these boys didn't know we were supposed to be sports. So if they got out of hand, I found a good hard crunch on their toes with my heel usually did the trick. I have to say I got some satisfaction out of that.

But that hardly ever happened. Most of the boys just wanted to share a laugh and a dance and after hours, step out to a nightclub. After a couple of beers, they got sentimental. They told us about their families and girlfriends back in Iowa or Nebraska or Minnesota, they scribbled their names on napkins and matchbook covers and asked us to write. "Don't know when I'll see a girl pretty as you again," they said, and then they kissed us.

Business at the Starlight was booming, and any girl with a bit of pep—like me—was making money hand over fist. By February, I had six gowns, and four regular outfits to go out to clubs. The gowns I kept at the Starlight, of course, but I ran out of room in my locker, so I'd started bringing the regular dresses home, one every few weeks. Ma didn't ask where I'd gotten the money. She'd started giving me an allowance out of my wages; maybe she thought I was saving it up to buy clothes. By this time she had all new housedresses, herself, and two pairs of new shoes, from all the "overtime" I worked. I stayed out late almost every night now.

Betty was the one who was giving me headaches.

Ever since she'd seen Paulie waiting for me outside church, she wouldn't let it alone. Wanting to know if I was seeing him. If he'd kissed me again. Doing her dog-with-a-damn-bone act. Truth was, part of why I'd bought her those nylons was to distract her. Maybe even bribe her a little. It had worked, sort of. But after I'd come home drunk, she was convinced.

"He wears cologne," she whispered, one Saturday afternoon when we were scrubbing the kitchen floor. "I know, I smelled it on you."

"You didn't smell anything, you idiot." It must have been Manny's aftershave. "Someone spritzed me with perfume at the engagement party."

"Well, which is it, then? Nothing, or perfume?" I flicked soapy water out of the bucket at her, and she shut up, but in no time at all she was back at it.

The minute I began bringing home clothes, she began stealing them to wear to school. Since I was never awake at six thirty, when she got dressed, she always got away with it. I'd pull out a dress to wear to work and find a stain on the bodice or a mustard spot on the skirt. When we fought about it, Ma took my side, telling Betty that those were my work clothes, to leave them alone. Betty said "Yes, Ma," and kept right on doing it.

"She's a pest," I complained to Paulie.

"Is that right," he said, looking out the window of the diner.

I sighed. Sometimes it was hard to find things to talk about with Paulie. We weren't seeing each other every day anymore—no one could keep that up forever—but we got together two or three afternoons a week, usually at Peoples Theater. Sometimes, a diner or chop suey joint in Canaryville, where nobody knew me, although Paulie didn't like that as well because we couldn't make out. Afternoons suited him just fine, though. Like me, he worked at night. Angling for the big score.

That was the one thing he loved to talk about. The big score. And the old-time gangsters. Al Capone and Frank Nitti, Bugs Moran and Jack McGurn. What they'd done and how they'd done it. He talked about how easy Capone had had it, with Prohibition and bootlegging—millions of bucks just waiting to be scooped up. He'd shake his head and say, "It ain't that easy anymore. And then Capone let the feds get him. Stupid." He sneered at what he called the small-time operators and their penny-ante schemes. They didn't understand it was all about the big score. Once you had that, you had it made. You'd be on top, and then anybody who gave you crap, you could make eat it.

He was on his way up already. You could see it, the way the neighborhood toughs pissed themselves like puppies when he walked by. Paulie would make it big, I knew it. Thinking it, I'd get that cold-shivery thrill again. But when I asked him what the big score might be, all he ever said was, "I got my fingers in some pies."

The one time I got Paulie's entire attention—aside from kissing—was when I told him about the policy king. He knew what policy was, of course. But he'd never heard of Horace Washington. When I got to the part about millions of dollars, he stopped me. Up on the movie screen, Clarabelle Cow was baking a cake for Mickey Mouse's birthday. Everyone around us was laughing, but Paulie had gone dead serious.

"Tell me that again," he said. So I did. "And they call him what? The king?"

"The policy king. Maybe he'll be at Lily's again. You could come with me and see for yourself."

But Paulie had slouched back in his seat. "I told you once already. I don't go to places like that."

Where I fit into his plans for the big score, I couldn't tell. Capone had had his Mae. Why shouldn't Paulie have me? But by the end of February, our dates had slid from three times a week to twice to once. Even making out in the theater seemed to bore him. "This is kid stuff," he'd say, and then, "If you'd just be a little sweet to me . . ."

"I am sweet to you," I'd tell him, and he'd give an irritated shrug.

He started staying away. A week would go by and I wouldn't see him. I called the garage until the man who answered finally told me not to call anymore. Then Paulie would show up, waiting outside the Starlight, or on the corner near my house. Those first times, everything would be wonderful. Then we'd fight, and he'd disappear again. I cried so hard one night, I woke up Betty. When she asked what was wrong, I told her to go jump in the lake.

And then, suddenly, Paulie wasn't my only problem.

THIRTEEN

I didn't pay attention. If you were popular, like I was, some customer or another was always calling your name. But then the man said, "Ruby Jacinski!" and I was so startled, I stumbled over my partner's feet.

None of the customers knew my real last name. Not even Tom, not even Manny. I'd picked that tip up from the other girls: don't give the customers a handle to find you outside the hall. If a man insisted, I said my name was deVere. I'd seen it in an ad somewhere, and I thought it was elegant.
Ruby deVere.

"I think that fellow wants you," the private said, just as Stan Dudek came up and tapped his shoulder to cut in. He was dressed in navy blues. Under his hat his face looked even more angular, his cheekbones and chin sticking out like the corners of furniture.

He smiled at me. "It:
is
you. I thought it couldn't be, because everyone said you'd gone to be a telephone operator. And the light's so bad in here. But then I got a little closer and I thought, Nobody but Ruby Jacinski is that tiny, with such pretty hair." The song ended. "Sorry to interrupt your dance." Stan took two tickets out of his pocket, tore them apart, gave one to the private. "Here's another to make up for it. Ruby?"

I nodded. My brain felt frozen. He put the ticket in my hand, and then we were swinging onto the floor just like we were back at Pulaski's drugstore, jitterbugging to the jukebox, with all the kids from school.

I'd been at the Starlight six months. In all that time, I'd never thought I might run into someone I knew. Why should I? There were dozens of taxi-dance halls in Chicago, and the Starlight wasn't anywhere near the closest one to the Yards. All through the dance, I smiled at Stan, but inside I was terrified. Mrs. Dudek lived two doors up the street. It wasn't possible that Stan would know I was here and my mother not find out.

After the dance, Stan kept hold of my hand. "I've never been to one of these joints before. Can you . . . I mean, is it okay if we sit and talk, instead of dance?"

Tell him no. Tell him you can't.

But this was Stan. I'd always liked Stan. He was one of the few boys in the neighborhood who looked me in the face when he talked to me, instead of eight inches lower. He'd been sweet to me since the first day my family arrived on Honore Street, when I was five and he was seven. Now he was going to war, and I couldn't be any less sweet to him.

"Buy us two sodas," I said, "and I'll grab a table."

When he came back with the drinks, before he could ask a question—before he even sat down—I said, "So, I hear you and Angie Wachowski are getting married."

I hadn't heard any such thing, except from Angie herself, and that had been almost five months ago, when I'd told her about Tom. I hadn't seen her since then, except passing on the street, and then we pretended not to notice each other.

But the question distracted Stan better than I'd hoped. He turned red and cleared his throat, and took some good long sips of his soda.

"Yeah, we weren't . . . we're not . . . " He grinned and rubbed his forehead, not meeting my eyes. "Oh, hell, Ruby. The truth is, I jilted her."

"Jilted her!" Angie Wachowski had never been jilted in her life.

"When I signed up, see, she wanted to get married right away. I guess to square things away, you know, before I left. But the thing of it is . . ." Stan gazed at the far end of the hall, squinting a little, as if he was seeing a horizon instead of a ten-piece band. "I don't want to spend my life on the killing floor, Ruby. You worked there, you understand."

I nodded. I understood perfectly.

"When I heard you'd quit the packinghouse to go be a telephone operator, I said to myself, That's just like Ruby Jacinski. Not gonna settle for anything." He picked up his napkin, creased it in half, then half again. "Angie and me, we were going along pretty good, and I thought it'd be all right. But then, when the Japs bombed Pearl Harbor . . . I felt like I ought to do something. A lot of us did. I signed up so I could pick the navy, and I busted my hump and I made good. I don't want to brag or anything, Rubes, but . . . I got accepted to navy pilot school."

"Pilot school! You mean flying planes?"

Stan laughed, and I clapped my hand over my mouth.
Of course a pilot flies planes, you dope!

But what he said was, "Yeah, I know. A Back of the Yards punk who thinks he can fly. Some nerve, huh?" He leaned forward, his eyes shining on mine. "But that's the thing, Ruby. The navy don't know the Yards from the North Shore. They don't care my pop's been a beef skinner all his life. All they care is, can I do it or not?"

His face reminded me of Paulie's, when Paulie talked about the big score. Or Ozzie's, blowing a solo at Lily's. Not hope. Not wishing. But a wanting so deep, it was like he would grab the world and shake it until it did what he told it.

Where would you go, if you could go anywhere you wanted?

I felt something stir, a little excitement, a thrill. But it was Stan leaving, not me.

"So?" I asked. "Can you do it?"

"Yeah," he said. No bragging, no fancy talk. Just
yeah.
He knocked back his cola. Then, setting his glass down, he said, "So what about you? What happened to the telephone job?"

It had to come around to this sooner or later. "I didn't . . . it didn't work out." I bit my lip. The burning had gone out of Stan's face. He looked at me from across the table, patient as a dog. "Stan, listen. My mother still thinks I work there. All right? If she knew about this . . ." I waved my hand at the couples swaying across the floor. "We don't do anything but dance, I swear. And the money's good, and we need it. But if Ma found out, she'd think I was . . . " Heat flamed up my neck, my face. "You know what she'd think. And she'd hate me. She'd call me a tramp and kick me out. She'd . . ."

"Hey," Stan said. "Hey, it's okay. Don't cry, Ruby." He reached over and brushed his thumb across my cheek. "I can see it's not . . . " He glanced at the far corner of the lounge—I didn't dare turn around, but I heard Nora giggle and I guessed she was rubbing up against some guy. ". . . you know, not such a bad place. We do what we have to, right? I thought my ma would bean me with the iron when I told her I'd volunteered." He grinned for a second, then got serious again. "Look, don't worry. I won't rat you out."

But he wasn't looking at me anymore. His gaze wandered around, and when it finally came back, it rested a good long moment on my tits. I was wearing a red gown, high cut but with a keyhole opening that showed nice cleavage. For the first time since I'd started working at the Starlight, I felt like covering up. I did the next best, and rested my elbows on the table, hands clasped under my chin. "Thanks, Stan. You're a real brick."

He lowered his voice. "Say, you want to blow this joint? Go to a club, get some real drinks?"

"Gosh, I wish I could." I put on my best know-nothing face. "I know some of the girls do . . . but I can't keep Ma waiting. She expects me home at a certain time, you see."

"Oh, sure. Of course."

Stan fished a piece of ice out of his glass, popped it into his mouth, and crunched it. The noise frayed my nerves. Stan might be sweet, but he was no dummy. He wasn't fooled, not about this place. As far as me . . . all I needed was for one of my fish to show up and say,
Ready to hit the town, Ruby?
and Stan would tattle to his mother sure as God made the grass green. After that, the news would be all over the parish in two seconds flat.
That's right. . . a taxi-dance hall. . . I always said that girl was flighty . . . the shame must be killing her poor mother.
And then no story in the world could ever make it right with Ma.

"Well," I said, "this has been really nice . . ."

"Stan-O!" a fellow hollered. I looked up to see two other navy recruits headed our way, each of them with his arm around a girl. My mouth went dry. As they got near, Stan stood up.

"Stanley Dudek," one of the recruits said, "meet Gabby and Yvonne. Gabby and Yvonne, this strapping handsome fellow is Stanley Dudek."

"Ruby Jacinski," Stan said. "George Roberts, Bill Costa."

"Stan's a good friend of mine," I blurted. "From the old neighborhood."

"Could've knocked me over with a feather when I saw her," Stan said.

Yvonne glanced between the two of us. She smiled, her slow wolf smile. "Is that so?"

The other recruit spoke up. "We're clocking these angels out and going on the town. Why don't you wrap up your friend, Stan, and bring her along? Yvonne here says she knows a great little place just off the Loop."

"Best vodka tonics in Chicago," Yvonne said. "Ruby just loves a good vodka tonic, don't you, Ruby?"

I tried to laugh. It came out shrill. "Don't be silly, you know my mother expects me home."

"Old lady can't expect you back before, what, two thirty?" the first recruit said. "It's only eleven now. Plenty of time. Come on,
get
your coat."

"Come on, Ruby," Stan said. "One little drink won't hurt."

"I'm sorry, I can't. I don't drink," I said.

Yvonne's smile widened. "Really? Just the other night, I thought—"

I jumped to my feet. "Yvonne, before you go, I need to get that . . . that lipstick for you." I grabbed her wrist. "This won't take a second," I called over my shoulder, and I pulled her to the Ladies'. Once there, she shook me off and stalked to her locker.

"This better be good," she said, lighting a cigarette.

"Look," I said. "Promise me you won't tell him things. Please. My mother . . ."

Yvonne lifted her eyebrows. "Things?"

"About the Pinoys. About the clubs. Please, it's the only thing I'll ever ask you."

Yvonne walked slowly back toward me. Head tilted to one side, like she was thinking. She leaned against one of the dressing tables. Crossed one long leg over the other. "You know," she said, "I always thought
promise
is an expensive word."

She couldn't just say,
Sure, Ruby.
She couldn't make it easy. I strode to my locker and yanked it open. "What do you want?"

She reached over to an ashtray, tapped her cig. "Nothing you've got," she said. "Unless . . . say, everything you earn for the next two weeks."

She flicked a bored gaze across me. "That's not surprising. Two weeks, or nothing."

I added quickly in my head. I had the money I'd been saving in the pillowcase at home, but it wasn't enough to cover two weeks' rent and groceries. Could I ask Paulie? Just yesterday we'd had another fight . . .

"Time's wasting," Yvonne said. "Put up or shut up."

No way around it. I'd have to figure out something later. I nodded. Yvonne tamped out her cigarette—Del didn't let us smoke on the dance floor—and sauntered out of the Ladies'.

The thought of giving my money to Yvonne hurt. Hurt me in my body, an actual ache, as though a hand grabbed low in my belly and squeezed.

"Lipstick," Stan said, when we rejoined them. He chuckled. "The stuff dames get worked up over. So, Ruby, you coming or not?"

"Ruby's such a baby, I bet she's never even seen the inside of a club," Yvonne said. "We'll get you a real gal to step out with." She waved her hand. "Stella!"

"Then I guess I'll see you around, Rubes," Stan said. "Kiss for old time's sake?"

I stood on tiptoes, let him peck me on the lips. "Look, Stan," I whispered. "If they lay a line on you about going to a hotel after, don't fall for it. They'll get you to give them the money up front for . . . well, you know. Then they'll run out the back with the dough and leave you standing out front like fools."

"How do you . . ."

"Because they laugh about it later, that's how. The recruits are shipping out, they can't come back to settle the score. Easy money."

"Come on, Stan, time to leave the little girls in the playground," Yvonne called.

Stan nodded to me. "Thanks, Ruby. I owe you one."

Right after they left, the band took a break. A soldier asked if he could buy me a soda, but I turned him down. I went back toward the Ladies', then, when nobody was watching, slipped down the hallway. I stood outside Ozzie's room and laid my head back against the wall and listened to him singing notes in the dark. Wild music. A wanting so deep, you would break the world open, just to get your chance.

Ozzie and Stan, they knew what they wanted.

What did I want?

Paulie. You want Paulie.

Yes. And no. At least, not only him. Something more, I didn't know what. A nameless want that reached down, grabbed me by the roots. Felt like it was about to shake me apart.