Valley of the Dolls (12 page)

Helen had settled down—for two years. Then her image once again flashed across the AP and the UP wires as she told the world that “it’s been pure hell on the ranch” and that Broadway was her real home. Henry had quickly gone through the arrangements for a Reno divorce, composers and librettists rushed to Helen with their newest scores, and now Helen was back where she belonged—rehearsing for
Hit the Sky.

She couldn’t be the love interest, Anne decided. Not with that padding of flesh on her jawline. It was practically a double chin. Yet she was singing a love song, her eyes still flashed merrily, the old vivacity was still intact, the long shock of curly black hair was still shoulder length. . . . From the lyrics of the song Anne realized Helen was playing a widow, searching for a new love. Well, it probably would work—but why hadn’t Helen taken off about fifteen pounds before she tackled the show? Or didn’t she realize the change the years had brought? Maybe it happened so gradually you never noticed. I haven’t seen her in eight years, Anne thought, so it comes as a shock to me. Maybe Helen still looks the same in her own eyes.

These were the thoughts that rambled through her mind as she watched Helen do the number. At the same time she was conscious that Helen’s magnetism did not rely on her face or figure. There was something that compelled you to watch her, and soon you forgot the wide waistline, the sagging jawline, and felt only her tremendous warmth and rakish good humor.

When she finished the number, Gilbert Case called out, “Wonderful, Helen! Just great!”

She walked to the edge of the stage, looked down at him and said, “It’s a piece of shit!”

His expression never changed. “You’ll get to love it, dear girl. You always feel this way about boy-girl ballads in the beginning.”

“Are you kidding? I loved the one I did with Hugh Miller in
Nice Lady.
I loved it the second I heard it. And Hugh was tone deaf—I had to carry the slob. At least Bob keeps on key.” She tossed her head to acknowledge the handsome, wooden man at her side. “So don’t tell me I’ll get to like it. It stinks! It doesn’t say anything. And I hate combining comedy with torch. The tune’s okay, but you’d better tell Lou to come up with a better set of lyrics.”

She turned and walked off the stage. The assistant director shouted an eleven o’clock call for the following day and that the names of those with costume fittings were posted on the call board and for God’s sake to get to Brooks in time. There was a general buzzing all around and no one seemed at all concerned with Helen’s attack on the song—including Gilbert Case. He rose slowly from his seat, lit a cigarette and walked to the back of the theatre.

When the stage had cleared, Anne gingerly made her way back. The young man with the script pointed toward the door of Helen’s dressing room.

Anne tapped, and the famous raucous voice yelled, “Come in!”

Helen looked up in surprise. “Who in hell are you?”

“I’m Anne Welles and I—”

“Look, I’m tired and busy. What do you want?”

“I came with this portfolio.” Anne placed it on the makeup table. “Mr. Bellamy sent it.”

“Oh. Well, where in hell is Henry?”

“He’s tied up with some real-estate board meeting. But he said he’ll talk to you tomorrow and explain anything you don’t understand.”

“Okay, okay.” Helen turned back to the mirror and waved her hand in dismissal. Anne started for the door and Helen shouted, “Hey, wait a minute. Aren’t you the girl I read about? The one who got Allen Cooper and the ring and all?”

“I’m Anne Welles.”

Helen grinned. “Well, hey . . . glad to meet you. Sit down. I didn’t mean to be nasty, but you should see some of the characters who slip by the stage doorman and get in to see me. All of them with something to sell. Hey, lemme see the ring!” She grabbed Anne’s hand and whistled in appreciation. “Wow, that’s a beaut! I got one twice that size, but I bought it for myself.” She stood up and slid into her mink coat. “I bought this myself, too. No man ever really gave me anything.” She said it plaintively. Then she shrugged. “Well, there’s always tomorrow. Maybe I’ll meet a right guy who’ll shower me with presents and rescue me from this rat race.”

She grinned at Anne’s surprise. “Yeah, that’s what I said. You think it’s fun going through these four stinking weeks of rehearsal, and then the hell that goes on during the out-of-town tryout? And if you come in with a hit, so what? Big deal—you still wind up with the
News
and
Mirror
after the show.” She started for the door. “Where are you going? I have a car, I can drop you.”

“Oh, I can walk,” Anne said quickly. “I live right near.”

“So do I, but that’s one thing I get in my contract—the producer pays for the car and chauffeur to pick me up and call for me. During rehearsals and after performances of the New York run. Unless I get lucky and have a date,” she added with a grin.

It was drizzling when they came out of the stage door, so Anne accepted Helen’s lift. “Drop me first,” Helen called to the chauffeur, “then take Miss Welles wherever she wants to go.”

When they stopped before Helen’s apartment building, she took Anne’s hand in an impulsive gesture and said, “Come up and have a drink with me, Anne. I hate to drink alone. It’s only six. You can call your fella from my place. He can pick you up there.”

Anne wanted to go home—it had been a long day—but there was an urgency about the loneliness in Helen’s voice. She followed Helen into the building.

Inside the apartment, Helen’s mood changed as she looked around proudly. “Like it, Anne? I paid a fortune to the faggot who did it. That’s a real Vlaminck over there . . . and that’s a Renoir.”

It was a warm, attractive apartment. Anne stared at the bleak snow scene by Vlaminck with deep admiration. This was a side of Helen she never would have imagined. . . .

“I don’t know my ass from my elbow about art,” Helen went on. “But I like to have the best of everything around me. At this point in my life I can afford it. So I told Henry to pick me some good pictures that would go well with the apartment and be good investments. The Renoir’s not bad, but that snow scene—
ugh!
But Henry says a Vlaminck will triple in value. Come on in the den. That’s my favorite room . . . the bar’s in there.”

The walls of the den were a pictorial cavalcade of Helen’s theatrical life. Glossy photographs were neatly framed and mounted with assembly-line precision. There were pictures of Helen in short skirts and the frizzy hair of the twenties, autographing a baseball bat for Babe Ruth. A smiling Helen with a mayor of New York . . . Helen with a famous senator . . . Helen with a well-known songwriter . . . Helen receiving the Best Broadway Star award . . . Helen sailing to Europe with her second husband . . . Helen in affectionate poses with other theatrical luminaries. There were also plaques, framed scrolls, commendations, all proclaiming Helen’s greatness.

There was also a bookcase filled with leather-bound volumes—Dickens, Shakespeare, Balzac, De Maupassant, Thackeray, Proust, Nietzsche. Anne surmised that Henry had also been assigned to furnish the bookcases.

Helen noticed her looking at the books. “All the right classic junk, huh? I tell you that Henry knows everything. But you’ll never convince me people actually read that shit I tried a few pages once . . . Christ!”

“Some of them
are
tough going,” Anne agreed. “Especially Nietzsche.”

Helen’s eyes widened. “You
read
those books? Know something? I never read a book in my life.”

“Now you’re teasing me,” Anne insisted.

“Nope. When I work in a show, I work hard. After the show, if I’m lucky I have a date. If not, I come home from the show alone. And by the time I take a bath and read the trade papers and the columns, I’m ready to pop off. I sleep till noon, read the afternoon papers, go through my mail, get on the horn with my friends . . . by that time I’m ready for dinner. I never go out for dinner when I’m doing a show and I never have a drink till after the show. But after the show I like to hoot. Oh, yeah . . . I almost read a book during my last marriage. That’s when I
knew
it was going sour. How do you like your champagne—on the rocks?”

“I’ll take a Coke, if you don’t mind,” Anne said.

“Oh, come on, take some of my bubbly water. It’s the only thing I drink, and if you don’t help me with it, I’ll wind up killing the bottle myself tonight. And let me tell you, the grape adds bloat.” She patted her waistline knowingly. “I’m still trying to get rid of the weight I gained on the ranch.” She handed Anne a glass. “Christ! You ever lived on a ranch?”

“No. I come from New England.”

“I thought I was gonna live on that ranch for life. C’mere . . .” She dragged Anne into the bedroom. “See that bed? It’s eight feet wide. That was the bed I had custom made when I married Frank. He was the only man I ever loved. I had that fucking thing shipped all the way to Omaha when I married Red, and I had it shipped back here again. I bet I paid more for shipping that bed around than it cost to begin with. That’s Frank.” She pointed to a photograph on her night table.

“He’s very attractive,” Anne mumbled.

“He’s dead.” Tears came to Helen’s eyes. “He got killed in an auto accident two years after we were divorced. It was that bitch he married that drove him to it.” Helen’s sigh went through her entire body.

Anne glanced at the clock on the night table. It was six-thirty. “Do you mind if I use your phone?”

“Come on in the den and use it there. You’ll be more comfortable.”

Helen poured some more champagne while Anne called Allen.

“Where are you?” he asked. “I’ve called you three times and got Neely every time. She was getting pretty tired of me, especially since she’s dressing for a date with her big love. Which reminds me, I’m with Gino. He wants to know if you mind his horning in on our dinner date tonight.”

“I’d love it, Allen. You know that.”

“Fine. We’ll pick you up in half an hour.”

“Okay, but I’m not at home. I’m at Helen Lawson’s.”

There was a fractional pause, then Allen said, “You can tell me about
that
at dinner. Want me to call for you there?”

He wrote down the address. “She’s at Helen Lawson’s,” she heard him tell Gino. “What? You’re kidding!” This was also to Gino. Then he returned to her. “Anne, believe it or not, Gino says to bring Helen Lawson along for dinner.”

“Oh. . . do they know one another?” Anne asked.

“No, but what difference does that make?”

“Allen, I couldn’t—”

“Ask her!”

Anne hesitated. You just didn’t ask a woman of Helen’s stature to come along on a blind date. And with Gino, of all people! Allen noticed the pause. “Anne, are you still on?”

She turned to Helen. “Allen would like to know if you would care to join us. His father is coming along.”

“As his father’s date?”

“Well. . . there’d be just the four of us.”

“Sure!” Helen shouted. “I’ve seen him at El Morocco. He’s kinda sexy looking.”

“She’d like to very much,” Anne said coolly into the receiver. Then she hung up. “They’ll call for us in half an hour.”

“Half an hour? How can you go home and get dressed up in that time?”

“I won’t. I’ll go this way.”

“But you’re wearing a polo coat. And a tweed suit.”

“Allen’s taken me out like this before. He won’t mind.”

Helen’s face puckered into a pout, causing her to look like a bloated baby. “Aw gee, Annie, I wanted to get all gussied up. Now I can’t. I’d look like a Christmas tree with you dressed like that. And I wanna make a good impression on Gino. He’s a live one.”

This couldn’t be happening. Helen Lawson acting like a high school girl over a date with Gino. And this sudden attack of coyness did not fit Helen’s personality, which drew its strength from a certain roughneck dignity. She found herself hoping this baby pout was a rare side of Helen’s nature.

“Call them back and tell them to make it a little later,” Helen suggested. “That way you’ll be able to run home and change.”

Anne shook her head. “I’m too tired. I’ve been working all day.”

“What the hell do you think
I’ve
been doing?” Helen’s tone was that of a child who has been left out of a game. “I was up at nine this morning. I worked for three hours on a dance routine with those slobs The Gaucheros. I fell on my ass at least six times. I went through that stinking song a hundred times. And I’m still raring to go. And I’m a little older than you. I’m. . . thirty-four.”

“I haven’t got that kind of energy,” Anne said, managing to cover her surprise. Thirty-four! George Bellows had been right.

“How old are you, Anne?”

“Twenty.”

“Stop with the bullshit! I read that in the papers. How old are you really?” The expression in Anne’s eyes made Helen change her tone. She broke into a little-girl smile. “Hey, are you one of those broads who faints at four-letter words? My old lady gets so mad when I use them. Tell you what, I’m gonna try and stop. Any time tonight I use bad language, you just give me one of those icy looks of yours.”

Anne smiled. There was something appealing in Helen’s swift changes of mood. She was guileless in her honesty and so vulnerable in spite of her position.

“Are you really only twenty, Anne?” Then she added quickly, “It’s just so fantastic that you made it so fast, catching someone like Allen Cooper. I’ll wear a black dress and just a little jewelry.” She started for the bedroom to change, talking all the while. “Hey, c’mon in with me. I may have the biggest voice on Broadway, but I can’t make it from there.”

Helen kept up a running stream of conversation while she dressed. Most of it concerned her husbands and how badly they had treated her. “All I ever wanted was love,” she kept repeating mournfully. “Frank loved me—he was an artist. God, if he could only see me with a real Renoir. Not that Frank painted like that. He was an illustrator, but on the side he used to paint what he called serious. His dream was the day he could afford to give up illustrating and paint like he wanted to.”

“Oh, were you just beginning then?”