The After Party (11 page)

A
nd then, spring of 1951, one year after Joan disappeared, she was back. She returned with little fanfare. I opened the door one evening to go out—to meet Ray for dinner at the Confederate House—and there she stood, a slim red purse hanging from her forearm, a delicate hat perched on her head.

I had known she was coming. Two weeks before Easter, Mary and Furlow had called me to Evergreen and informed me that Joan's adventure was over. They had tried, Furlow especially, to make light of the situation. “She wanted to be a star,” Mary said, her voice arch, and though I wouldn't have said she was mocking Joan, she was coming close. “But then she learned the world has enough stars,” Furlow said, forcing a laugh. “And I think she also learned that a life without money is no fun.”

So Joan had been cut off. I only wondered why it had taken so long.

“I know you've been waiting a long time,” Mary said, as she showed me to the door. “But now she's coming! Are you excited?” Her voice was falsely bright, as if I were a child to whom she'd given a long-anticipated treat.

“Yes,” I said, “of course.” The answer left my lips immediately, but the truth was more complicated. It was like being excited to see a ghost. Waiting suggested hope, and I had stopped hoping a long time ago that Joan would return. I moved around the Specimen Jar with her things—her maid, even—greeting me at every turn. It reminded me of living at my mother's house that week after she died, before I went to Evergreen. Now that Joan was returning, it felt impossible, like she was rising from the dead: how could a person, a person I had loved more than anyone else on earth, disappear so completely from my life, only to reappear a year later? It felt like magic, like sorcery. The idea of her scared me. How would I act in her presence? I no longer understood what she expected of me, nor I of her. I didn't know which way she would tip the delicate new balance of my life: I was in love. I had learned to love someone besides Joan.

But of course I wanted her desperately. I wanted to see her: to sit next to her, to touch her shoulder. Her shoulder that had surely been brushed by a dozen strangers since I had last seen her.

I wanted these things like you want to be held when you are a child: I wanted them instinctively. I wanted them from some deep place I could not name.

Sari and I had been waiting for days. I just didn't know exactly when Joan would arrive.

“You're here,” I said, staring at her, standing there uselessly, my arms at my sides. I was struck by how unchanged Joan appeared. The moment could have gone on forever—but then she stepped through the door and wrapped her arms around me. That was all it took. Joan wanted me.

She pulled away and surveyed the room. “Quite a place,” she murmured, and there was some awe in her voice, at least.

“I'll be right back,” I said. I had to slip away, call Ray, tell him I couldn't meet him. “I had plans. But I don't need to go anywhere, tonight.” I took Joan's hand between mine. I needed to feel her skin; I needed to convince myself that my ghost was actually here. Joan didn't seem to notice my nervousness. Or my happiness. She had removed her hand from mine and was introducing herself to Sari, whom she had never met; now she was sitting on the couch, smoothing the leather beneath her palm, smiling grandly, then standing up again, opening the sliding glass door and stepping out onto the balcony, gasping theatrically.

“Oh my,” she said, “this view!” She stood, and spoke, as if she were in front of an audience.

I'm not an audience
, I wanted to say.
It's just me, Cece, your friend from birth
.

I called Ray and then joined Joan back out on the balcony. “We're not staying here,” she pronounced. “Let's go out, just the two of us. To Maxim's.”

I called Ray again after we returned home, standing at the
counter while Joan undressed in her room, the phone pressed to my ear. I was still drunk on what had seemed like gallons of wine from Maxim's famous, never-ending wine list. I wanted to hear Ray's voice. I'd wanted all night to be with him. It hadn't just been the two of us, like Joan had said; by the end of the night, a dozen other people were clustered around our table.

“She's in fine spirits,” I said. “She's happy to be back, I think.”

“And you?” he asked. “You sound a little down in the mouth.”
This
was what it meant to have someone in my life who loved me. Joan had been the star all night. Furlow and Mary had been finishing up their meal when we'd entered, and they'd lingered a little bit, watched Joan say hi and chat with all the people who came up to our table, watched her tell them that Hollywood had been fun, but not as fun as Houston. But Ray only wanted to hear about me.

Joan meant nothing to him. Now I was the star.

“It was nice,” I said, “but I wished the whole time I was with you.”

•   •   •

I
don't know what I had expected. An apology, perhaps? I tried to tell myself that Joan had her reasons, that surely they were good ones.

I had imagined the conversation we would have—I would be hurt, a little angry, and Joan would say she was sorry, she was so, so sorry, and explain herself. Reveal the reason that could possibly make her departure and absence and silence understandable. But that had not happened. Joan spent most of her mornings in her room, with books—reading was a habit she seemed to have
picked up in LA—then, as evening approached, she would emerge, and move around the Specimen Jar with greater and greater animation. This Joan would give no explanation. Nor would I ask. I felt lucky to have her back, and that would have to be enough.

A few days after she had gotten back, though, she opened her bedroom door and called me in. The books rested in a neat stack on her bureau.

“Help me get dressed?” she asked. “Let's go out tonight.” She wore a pale pink robe and sipped a gin martini, which was now, apparently, her drink of choice. Before she'd left she hadn't had a drink of choice.

“In Hollywood,” she said as she stood, her voice faraway, “we went out every single night. Even Sundays. We had so much fun, Cece. I felt alive.”

Tell me what you did
, I wanted to say,
tell me what took you away from me for so long
.

“Ray's excited to meet you,” I said instead. It seemed important to say his name. I missed him, even when it had only been a short time since I'd seen him.

I dressed her in my clothes, a black gown that was a little too big for me. She filled it out in a way I never could. It wasn't something I would have worn anyway—I had probably bought it for Joan in the first place.

In the car, Joan watched Houston pass by our window.

“It's the same,” I said. “It waited for you.”

I wondered as I said it. Had Houston waited for Joan? Was it capable of waiting for Joan? Tonight, at the Cork Club—how would she be received? All our old gang would be there, along
with Ray. I wanted Houston to be the same for Joan. I wanted Joan to be the same for Houston.

The closer we got, the brighter Joan seemed to burn. She was sipping whiskey from a flask like the ones boys used to bring to high school dances.

She offered it to me and I took a sip, because I wanted to please her. I was relieved to see, if not quite the old Joan—this Joan held herself at a remove—some version of her returning to me, as if the ghost of Joan were now clothing herself in flesh.

“Mmm,” I said, though I hated it. I wondered what Fred thought of what we were doing back here. If he disapproved, if he cared at all.

Ray was waiting for us at the door. When I saw him I broke into a smile, and the night turned more promising. Going out with Joan had always, since we were teenagers, stirred me into a state of nervous excitement. I never knew what she would do. I never knew where the night would take us. Ray's presence, I realized, was reassuring. I knew what he would do.

“That's him,” I said to Joan, pointing as we pulled up to the entrance. “That's Ray.”

Joan watched him for a moment, silently, and I began to panic. If Joan did not like Ray, if she didn't approve of him, he would be ruined for me. I tried to stop myself from thinking it—surely Ray mattered more than what Joan thought of him—but I knew it was true.

“He's a doll,” she said, and grinned at me. “A doll.”

She jumped out of the car and ran up to him, me trailing a step behind, her heels clipping the pavement.

“Well hello,” she said when she reached him. “I hear you've been taking good care of Cece while I've been gone.”

“Yes,” Ray said, a little uncertainly, and I slid beneath his arm, put my hand on his chest. Ray seemed buoyed by my touch. “It's nice to meet you,” he said, and tipped his head.

“The pleasure's all mine,” Joan nearly sang, and patted her hair before she nodded to the doorman, who swung open the door with ceremony, as if he understood her importance. And who knows, perhaps he did.

It was a Saturday night; the place was packed. I scanned the room and saw a roped-off section in the corner. I could make out Glenn McCarthy, in his sunglasses and leopard-print ascot. He was sitting around his regular table with glamorous blondes and a few unsmiling men. I wondered if they were his bodyguards.

I stood a few feet behind Joan. She stopped as soon as we were inside, backed up a little bit, and I wondered if she was frightened, if she wanted to leave. If returning to all this—all these people, all this noise, all the smoke and shimmer—was not, in fact, what she'd wanted. Too much, too soon, perhaps.

I stepped away from Ray. “It's okay,” I whispered, and touched Joan on the back. “Stay with me.”

She looked at me with an odd little half smile I couldn't read. Should I have left her alone? I looked at my friend, dressed in my gown, her hair in a high ponytail I'd done myself, and felt despair. I knew no one, and no one knew me.

“Thank you,” she said. It was all I needed; I felt euphoric. But then she gathered herself, threw back her shoulders, and marched
straight through the center of the room, her hand extended, waving at the people who watched as she passed. And who watched her? Everyone.

“So that's Joan,” Ray said, coming up behind me, encircling me with his arms.

“Yes,” I said lightly, slipping out of his grasp. “That's Joan.”

Half an hour later and she was sitting at Mr. McCarthy's table, the glamorous blondes shooting her dirty looks. An hour later and his leopard-print ascot was around her neck. Somehow she didn't look foolish. She looked fun.

“Looks like she picked up a few tricks in Hollywood,” Ciela said, furiously smoking a cigarette. We were standing at the bar, with Ray, watching Joan. “She hasn't even said hi yet. Too busy with Diamond Glenn.”

Just then Joan caught sight of us and waved, and before I knew it she was running across the room, throwing her arms around Ciela's neck.

“Long time no see!” she said, and laughed.

“That's for sure,” Ciela said. “I didn't quite make it out to Hollywood last year.”

But Joan didn't take the bait; she was too enlivened—too drunk—to take offense.

“This place is so goddamned ugly!” Joan said loudly, and I checked to make sure Glenn McCarthy wasn't in hearing distance.

“Joan!” I hissed. The snobs from Dallas might have called it the Damn-rock, but we were proud of the Shamrock, which was emblematic of everything about Texas we held dear. It was bigger
and better and brasher, and of one thing we could be absolutely certain: there was no other place like it in the world.

“What? I'm going to fall asleep to visions of green tonight. I want to come to a nightclub that reminds me of Paris,” she said, “or Monte Carlo! Not a leprechaun's fantasy.” A waiter placed a glass of champagne into her outstretched hand. “They're keeping me well-oiled,” she said, and winked.

Ciela chortled. “Paris? Monte Carlo? You've never actually
been
to either of those places, have you, dear?”

Joan shrugged. “I've read about them. Seen plenty of pictures. Taste is taste. And if you'll excuse me . . .” And with that, she reentered the melee.

“She reads!” Ciela said. “She looks at pictures. ‘Taste is taste,'” she mimicked, and glanced at me, waiting, but I couldn't do it. I couldn't mock Joan.

“She's just excited,” I said. “She'll calm down.”

Ciela sighed. “You'll have to excuse me, too,” she said. “I need to visit our most vulgar of powder rooms.”

“Is Joan always like this?” Ray asked, after Ciela had left.

“Like what?” I asked, though I knew exactly what he meant. I took a sip of my champagne. “Let's dance,” I said, because Ray loved to dance.

“Okay,” Ray said, “but slow down a little bit?”

I smiled. “I don't want to slow down!” And we were out on the dance floor, where I could go as fast as I wanted.

A few hours and a few glasses of champagne later and Ray and I were sitting at the bar, me practically on his lap, when Ciela ran up, breathless.

“You've got to come see this,” she said giddily, and motioned outside, toward the pool, and I knew immediately she meant Joan.

She was already halfway up the steps to the high diving board by the time I arrived. There was no way for me to get close—there must have been two hundred people on the patio next to the pool, ladies in their glimmering evening dresses, men in their slim-fitting suits, watching Joan as she ascended the steep spiral stairs. She was still in her heels. One hand gripped the railing; the other held a glass of champagne. I should have been terrified, but I wasn't. You could feel the energy of the crowd, watching Joan. Elated. We were all waiting for what came next.

The Shamrock's diving board wasn't your ordinary diving board—there was a low board, a medium board, and a high board a good thirty feet above the water. Joan had executed beautiful dives from the high board, it was true, but she'd been in a bathing suit, and she hadn't been drunk.