The Fame Game (40 page)

Finally when she was exhausted, Bobby decided he wanted to sit down. They had another drink and fanned each other with the menus, and he kept looking at her and smiling at her. The other couples they had come with didn’t bother to make much conversation because it was so noisy, and Silky began to feel more secure and glad she had decided to come. She should get out more. It was a great cure for depression. She saw girls without dates and she realized that other people didn’t sit home their whole lives waiting for the window washer to pop in through the window. They just got a friend and went out. No one looked at anyone funny for being out without a date. There seemed to be lots of good-looking guys alone too, looking for girls. No one was nervous about it or uptight; they just looked relaxed and glad to be there with the good music and the pretty people. She wondered why Bobby came there every night—because he liked to dance or because he met a different girl every night? What difference did it make? He was here with her and he liked her tonight and she was having a good time.

At three in the morning the six of them went for something to eat, and then it was four and everybody had to go to bed because there were lessons and appointments tomorrow and a show to do at night. The other two couples split and Bobby dropped her off at her apartment in a cab. She had a good excuse not to ask him up because it was late, but the truth was that she didn’t want him telling everybody in the chorus tomorrow that he’d had the star on their first date. She kissed him good night and said Happy Birthday to make it a friendly kiss not a sexy one, and then her doorman was there behind them and she ran to the elevator. She omitted her usual glass of champagne on the terrace and cleaned her face and went right to bed. She was unaccountably happy. She kept seeing his face. He was so beautiful! How could a man be so beautiful? Every time she saw him she had forgotten how beautiful he was, and seeing him again was like a shock. It was like seeing a sunset.
I wonder if I could marry a man just because he was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen
… She drifted off to sleep, curled up in the fetal position with her knuckles in her mouth.

That evening she saw him just before their first number together and he said hello brightly, as if she was no more and no less a friend than yesterday. She liked that he was playing it cool. She wondered if he would come to her dressing room after the show, but he didn’t, and then she was disappointed and oddly hurt. She spent longer than usual taking off her stage make-up, just hoping he would come by, but when she finally realized that she was the last one in the theater she got up to go, realizing for the first time how hurt she really was. He hadn’t even stopped by to say good night! What an evil little rat!

She stepped out the stage door into the alley and there he was, standing in the shadows behind the garbage cans. He came out of the shadows lithely, as if he were a shadow himself, walked close beside her without touching her, and said softly: “Hello. Where do you want to go?”

She was happy and confused. He had waited for her all that time so no one would know they were dating. “Why don’t you come to my apartment?” she blurted out without thinking. “I have a terrace and I’ll make some eggs.”

“Groovy, baby.”

In the cab she couldn’t think of a thing to say, but he filled in the silence by telling her how some of the boys in the chorus had been stuffing their jeans with socks until tonight, when the stage manager caught them and made them take all the socks out right between the acts. He laughed about it and wondered if the audience had noticed. Silky noticed that he had no need to stuff his jeans with anything. When they got to her apartment she was stiff and self-conscious in front of the doorman because she had never invited a man up before, and because she was unmarried and famous, and because the doorman was white and had all the snob of a honky peasant and she wondered if he thought she was a tramp. She even wondered for one frantic moment if the doorman would stop Bobby. But the doorman only gave a half salute and said “Good evening,” and Bobby said “Good evening” right back in a confident, friendly way, and then they were safe in the elevator, which was self-service.

When she opened the door to her apartment and put all the lights on, Bobby ran around like a puppy in a field. “Oh, this is a groovy pad!” he said softly. “Oh, wow!” He ran out on the terrace, spread his arms out, and yelped into the night with joy. “New York!” he screamed. “New Yorrrrrk!” She popped the cork on a cold split of champagne she had in the refrigerator and brought it and two glasses out to the terrace on a silver tray with a linen napkin on it.

He poured the champagne, gave her hers first, clicked their glasses, and they drank, looking into each other’s eyes. Oh, wasn’t he beautiful! She was glad he was the first man she had ever invited to her apartment … and then with a small shock she remembered Shack-Up Bascombe: he had been there three times and she had forgotten all about it! She had put Shack-Up and his brutish ways completely out of her mind. Well, the heck with him. She probably didn’t exist for him any more either. Bobby La Fontaine was the first man who had ever been up to her apartment; that was the way it was going to be.

There was only one glass for each of them in the split so Silky got another and they drank it, leaning on the terrace railing and looking down at the lights. The lights had never seemed so beautiful before, as if she had ordered them along with the apartment to impress people.

“Right there’s my room,” Bobby said, pointing.

“Where?”

“There.”

She certainly couldn’t see anything but the whole, vast city. She wondered if he was ever lonely.

“You must be lonely here alone,” he said, as if reading her mind.

“Not often. I mean, I’m alone, but I’m not lonely often.”

“You shouldn’t have to be alone,” he said. “Being alone in a beautiful place is much worse than being alone in a dump.”

“I know.”

“You have everything, don’t you?” he said. “I bet everybody just wants to know you because they can get something from you. Most of them because you’re a star, and some of them, the smarter ones, because you’re the kind of woman who gives too much of herself.”

“What makes you think that?”

“I know it. I hope you don’t think I’m here just because I want something from you. I would have been glad to take you to my room. I don’t need anything from anybody.”

“I’m sure you don’t,” she said.

He grinned. “That’s a lie. I need affection.”

“Who doesn’t?”

“You’d be surprised.”

No, she wouldn’t be surprised. She’d known too many people who didn’t need or want affection. All of them holding themselves back, holding other people away. She shivered and Bobby put his arms around her and began kissing her.

He was very gentle and very sexy. She pulled back once and looked at him, and he had his eyes closed as if he was in a trance. She thought he probably thought she was very sexy, too. He didn’t know where the bedroom was so she took him there. After all, they both knew what they were going to do and they weren’t going to do it out on the terrace, were they?

She didn’t know much about men but she knew there was something extraordinary about this boy. For one thing, he was better in bed than Dick, who she had thought was the greatest lover in the world, but more important, he was gentle and tender and cuddly afterward, as if it was not over at all but simply a different phase of it. His body felt marvelous, lots of muscles but very soft over them, super-cuddly, and wasn’t he beautiful! He kissed her hands and kept looking at her, and Silky took a last desperate grab at reality and realized she had lost it—she was in love with him.

She looked at the bedside clock and realized it was half past one. She had a matinee the next day. She decided not to think about it.

“Could I have some orange juice or something?” he said.

“You must be starving! I promised you eggs.” She jumped out of bed, threw on her bathrobe, and ran into the kitchen. He put some records on the hi-fi and poured more champagne for them while she made scrambled eggs with cheese and bacon—he refused toast because he didn’t want to gain weight—and coffee.

“Where do you want to eat it?”

“In bed, where else?” he said.

They ate the eggs and drank the champagne and decided not to drink the coffee after all because it would keep them awake, and they listened to the records and held hands and kissed, without saying anything. Silky couldn’t think of anything to say, but she didn’t feel uncomfortable and she hoped he wasn’t bored. She wasn’t bored, just content. She felt as if she had been running uphill for a long time and now she had finally come to a peaceful place where she could rest.

“Can I sleep here tonight?” he asked.

“Of course.”

“Where do you want me to sleep?”

“In the bed, of course.”

She set the alarm and turned off the hi-fi, and he put the dishes into the sink. He didn’t seem to notice the dishwasher she was so proud of. She put the chain on the door and turned out all the lights. “Do you want a toothbrush?” she asked.

“Do you have one for me?”

“It just happens, I do.”

She had an extra one, unopened in its box, and she gave it to him. She liked seeing it in the glass next to hers. They slept in each other’s arms. She had done it with her first boy when she was fourteen, but she had never slept in any man’s arms before, and it was the safest place in the world.

In the morning she made breakfast, which it turned out was only the coffee from the night before heated up because they both disliked breakfast, and while she was dressing she began to worry about how they could walk into the theater together. She ought to be proud of him, but she didn’t want anybody to know about them and think the wrong thing … that he’d scored with the star, that she’d do it with anybody in the show or all of them … any wrong and vicious thing. He was dressed before she was and took her in his arms to kiss her good-bye.

“I have to stop off at my place for a minute,” he said. “I’ll see you at the theater.”

She knew it was a lie and she loved him for it. Her heart went out to him with tenderness. How could she have been so mean not to want anyone to know she’d made love with him? What was wrong with him, anyway? Who wouldn’t want to make love with him, and who wouldn’t be proud of it?

After he left she called her service for messages from the night before and that morning because she hadn’t answered the phone. Then she wasted a little time so he could get to the theater before her, and finally she left. She knew she looked different when she walked into the theater; glowing, radiant, happy. She didn’t care. It was about time she had something in life.

On matinee days Silky usually had something sent in from a restaurant so she could take a nap between shows, so she did, but she wasn’t hungry and she wished Bobby was there to share it with her. She forced herself to eat—she wasn’t going to repeat that Dick Devere incident!—and then she lay down and closed her eyes but she couldn’t sleep. She thought about Bobby and imagined his face. She didn’t think anything special about him; he was more like a presence that filled her entire mind so she couldn’t think about anything else. She was happy, and worried that he might not like her as much as she liked him. Maybe he was cuddly and tender with everybody because
he
needed tenderness. She was relieved when it was time to get up.

There were times during their numbers together when they passed each other on the stage, and they both looked at each other and tried not to smile. She saw the smile beginning on his face and being held back. She did the show better than usual and she was pleased with herself. The audience applauded and yelled at her like they always did, and she was glad but she didn’t feel as desperately grateful as she always did. They loved her and she loved them, but they were like a family, not her lover. Her lover was waiting.

She began to worry that he wouldn’t be there in the alley and her hands were shaking as she removed her make-up, but she forced herself to time it exactly as she always did so she wouldn’t be there before he got outside. If he wasn’t there, what would she do? She would go to the bar down the street where the dancers always hung out after the show. She would walk right in as if she had a right to join the other kids in the show, and somebody would ask her to join their table and she’d sit right down and have a drink and look around until she saw him. She’d say hello and he’d have to talk to her. She would die of humiliation. The wardrobe woman knew by now to respect her silence, so at least she didn’t have to make conversation, and she watched the clock on her dressing table until she was sure Bobby had to have left the theater and then she said good night and went outside. She was so nervous she had to go to the bathroom.

He was there, in the shadows, where he had been the night before. He walked beside her again, close but without touching, and said: “Hi.”

“Hi.”

“Where do you want to go?”

“Home,” she said. “Where do you want to go?”

“Where do you think?”

They held hands as soon as they were in the taxi and started kissing as soon as the taxi was out of the theater district. When they got home they had champagne together on the terrace and looked at the lights and kissed, and then they went to bed, happy because the next day was Sunday and they had the whole day together. At least she
hoped
they had the whole day together. Maybe he went to a gym or something on Sundays! She wasn’t going to worry about it, but she couldn’t help worrying about it anyway.

The next afternoon he said he had to do some errands and Silky felt deserted and frightened. He promised to come back at six o’clock. She washed her hair, and washed her underwear because she couldn’t stand to make a maid do those personal things even though she had a cleaning woman who came in three times a week (who went with the apartment).

At five thirty she started getting nervous and turned on the television, but she couldn’t watch it, so she made herself a drink—a Scotch and soda—and lit a cigarette even though she never smoked. She puffed at it without inhaling and gulped the drink, knowing she was a fool to be so frightened but not able to do anything about it. She’d known the boy—how long? Three dates? What was wrong with her? When the hand of the clock hit six she felt like somebody on Death Row waiting to go to the gas chamber.