Valley of the Dolls (3 page)

The second wire arrived ten days later, on a Friday morning:

DEAR HENRY: HAVE BLUE SUIT. ARRIVE IN NEW YORK TOMORROW NIGHT. WILL COME DIRECTLY TO YOUR FLAT. SEE IF YOU CAN BOOK HOTEL RESERVATION. EXPECT TO START MONDAY. BEST. LYON.

Henry Bellamy took off at noon to celebrate. Anne was just finishing the mail when George Bellows stopped at her desk.

“Why don’t we go somewhere and celebrate, too?” he asked casually.

She couldn’t hide her astonishment. Her association with George Bellows had been confined to an official “good morning” and an occasional nod.

“I’m asking you to lunch,” he explained.

“I’m very sorry, but I promised to join the girls at the drugstore.”

He helped her into her coat. “Too bad,” he said. “This may be our last day on earth.” He smiled ruefully and drifted back to his office.

At lunch she listened to the endless chatter about Lyon Burke with half a mind, wondering idly why she had turned down George’s invitation. Fear of complications? From one lunch? How silly. Loyalty to Allen Cooper? Well . . . Allen
was
the only man she knew in New York, and he was very kind. Perhaps that did rate him a kind of loyalty.

She recalled the day he had burst into the office, determined to clinch some kind of deal—insurance, Anne later found out. Henry had been unusually cold and had gotten rid of him quickly. So quickly, in fact, that Anne’s sympathies were aroused. As she led him out she had whispered, “Better luck next stop.” He had seemed almost startled at the warmth in her voice.

Two hours later her phone rang. “This is Allen Cooper. You remember me—the dynamic salesman? Well, I want you to know that my session with Henry was a wild success compared to my other stops. At least at Bellamy’s I met you.”

“You mean you haven’t made a sale?” She felt genuinely sorry.

“Nope. Struck out everywhere. Guess this just isn’t my day . . . unless you want to give it a happy ending by having a drink with me.”

“I don’t . . .”

“Drink? Me either. So let’s make it dinner then.”

That’s how it began—and continued. He was pleasant and had a nice sense of humor. She thought of him as a friend rather than a date. Very often she didn’t bother to change her clothes after work. He never seemed to notice what she wore. And he always seemed eagerly grateful for her company. They went to little unknown restaurants and she always selected the least expensive item on the menu. She wanted to offer to pay her end, but she was afraid it might make him feel more of a failure.

Allen was hopelessly miscast as a salesman. He was too nice and mild-mannered for his profession. He asked questions about Lawrenceville, her days at school, even the events at the office. He made her feel like the most interesting, fascinating girl in the world.

She continued to see him because he made no demands upon her. Sometimes in a movie he held her hand. He made no attempt to kiss her good night. Her feeling was one of relief mixed with a curious sense of inadequacy. It was almost embarrassing not to be able to arouse any passion in poor Allen, but she was content to let matters rest. The thought of kissing him brought on the same distaste she had experienced when she had kissed Willie Henderson back in Lawrenceville, and this made her wonder again about her own capacity for love. Perhaps she wasn’t normal—or maybe her mother was right, maybe passion and romance did exist only in fiction.

Later that afternoon George Bellows stopped at her desk again. “I’ve come to make another pitch,” he said. “How about the sixteenth of January? You can’t be dated up that far ahead.”

“But that’s almost three months away.”

“Oh, I’ll be glad to take anything that opens before then. But Helen Lawson just called, screaming for Henry, and it reminded me that her show opens on the sixteenth.”

“That’s right,
Hit the Sky
goes into rehearsal next week.”

“Well, will you or won’t you go with me?”

“I’d love it, George. I think Helen Lawson is wonderful. She used to break in all her shows in Boston. When I was a little girl my father took me to see her in
Madame Pompadour.”

“Okay, it’s a date. Oh, and Anne, once this show goes into rehearsal, Helen is liable to come crashing in here a good deal. If you two ever get around to the small-talk department, don’t come up with that ‘I-loved-you-when-I-was-a-little-girl’ routine. She might stab you.”

“But I
was
a little girl. And ridiculous as it sounds, that was only ten years ago. But even then Helen Lawson was a mature woman. She was at least thirty-five.”

“Around here we act like she’s twenty-eight.”

“George, you can’t be serious! Why, Helen Lawson is ageless. She’s a great star. It’s her personality and talent that make her so attractive. I’m sure she’s too intelligent to think she looks like a girl.”

George shrugged. “Tell you what. I’ll phone you twenty years from now and ask you how you feel. Looking twenty-eight seems to be an infectious disease that most women catch the moment they hit forty. To play it safe, just don’t bring up the subject of age around Helen. And please mark your calendar. January sixteenth. In the meantime, have a nice weekend and take it easy. It’ll be plenty hectic around here on Monday—when the conquering hero comes marching home.”

The receptionist was wearing a tight new plaid. The junior secretary’s pompadour was two inches higher. Even Miss Steinberg had broken out with last spring’s navy suit. Anne sat in her cubbyhole outside Henry’s office and tried to concentrate on the mail. But like the others, her attention was riveted on the door.

He arrived at eleven o’clock. With all the office gossip and speculation, she was still unprepared for anyone as striking as Lyon Burke.

Henry Bellamy was a tall man, but Lyon Burke towered over him by a good three inches. His hair was Indian black and his skin seemed burned into a permanent tan. Henry bristled with unconcealed pride as he led Lyon around and performed introductions. The receptionist colored visibly when she shook his hand, the junior secretary simpered and Miss Steinberg went absolutely kittenish in her excitement.

For the first time Anne was grateful for her rigid New England reserve. She knew she presented a calm she did not feel as Lyon Burke took her hand.

“Henry hasn’t stopped talking about you. Now that we meet, it’s quite easy to understand.” The English accent was definitely an asset. Anne managed a gracious answer and was grateful when Henry Bellamy steered Lyon toward the newly decorated office.

“Anne, you come in with us,” Henry ordered.

“It’s overwhelming,” Lyon said. “Makes one a bit apprehensive of the work expected in return.” He eased into a chair and smiled lazily. Anne suddenly understood what Miss Steinberg meant. Lyon Burke did smile at everyone, and that easy smile was impenetrable.

Henry beamed paternally. “Just be the same lazy bum you were before you left and I’ll redecorate for you every year. Now, let’s get down to cases. Anne, Lyon needs an apartment. He’s staying with me until he gets set,” Henry explained. “Would you believe it? We couldn’t get him a hotel room.”

She believed it. But she wondered why it should concern her.

“I want you to find him a place,” Henry said.

“You want
me
to find Mr. Burke an apartment?”

“Sure, you can do it,” Henry said. “That’s part of being more than a secretary.”

This time Lyon laughed heartily. “She’s a beauty, Henry. She’s everything you said. But she isn’t Houdini.” He winked at Anne. “Henry’s led a very sheltered life. He hasn’t looked for a flat in New York lately.”

Henry shook his head. “Listen, this girl arrived here two months ago and she didn’t know Seventh Avenue from Broadway. She not only found an apartment the first day, but landed this job and has me eating out of her hand.”

“Well, mine isn’t really an apartment. It’s very small . . .”

His direct gaze was unsettling. “My dear Anne, after some of those bombed-out places I slept in during the war, anything with a ceiling looks like the Ritz.”

“Anne will come up with something,” Henry insisted. “Try for the East Side. Living room, bedroom, bath and kitchen, furnished, around a hundred and fifty a month. Go to one-seventy-five if you have to. Start in right away, this afternoon. Take tomorrow off, take as long as you need . . . but don’t come back until you have the apartment.”

“Henry, we may never see this girl again,” Lyon warned.

“My money’s on Anne. She’ll come up with something.”

Her room was on the second floor of the brownstone. Today the two flights suddenly seemed insurmountable. She stood at the landing, holding the battered
New York Times.
She had spent the afternoon visiting every apartment listed, and they had all been taken. Her feet ached. She had dressed that morning for the office, not for apartment hunting. Tomorrow she’d get an early start—in flat heels.

Before she tackled the stairs she knocked at Neely’s door. There was no answer. She plodded up the shaky stairs and let herself into her room. She was grateful to hear the steam hissing through the ancient radiator.

Regardless of Lyon Burke’s “I’ll-take-anything” attitude, she couldn’t quite visualize him in a room like this. Not that it was a bad room. It was clean and conveniently located. Of course, compared to her spacious bedroom in Lawrenceville it was an awful room! The lumpy studio bed looked as if it might not last another year. Sometimes she wondered how many people had slept on it—hundreds, perhaps. But she didn’t know them, and perhaps it was just this anonymity that made it
her
bed. As long as she paid her rent, everything in this room belonged to her. The small, battered night table, crisscrossed with scratches and old cigarette burns; the bureau with the three drawers that had to be left slightly open because they stuck if they were closed and if you pulled too hard the knobs came off; and the pregnant easy chair, its lowered belly bulging with springs that just longed to burst through.

It could be made attractive, but there was never enough money left at the end of the week. (She was determined not to touch the five thousand she had in the bank.) She was still paying off her Bloomingdale bill for the good black dress and the good black evening coat.

She heard the familiar knock and called, “I’m in,” without looking up.

Neely entered and flopped on the chair, which groaned and came perilously close to disemboweling itself. “What’s with the ads in the
Times?
Thinking of moving?”

When Anne explained her new assignment, Neely laughed out loud. “You mean he doesn’t want a terrace thrown in, along with about four walk-in closets?” Then, dismissing the incident as impossible and thereby closed, she turned to the Important Matter. “Anne, did you get a chance to talk about
it
today?”

“It” was a favor Neely had been hammering at for two weeks.

“Neely, how could I? Today of all days . . . with Lyon Burke coming back.”

“But we’ve got to get into
Hit the Sky.
For some crazy reason Helen Lawson seems to like our act. We’ve been called back to audition three times and she was there at all our auditions. Now just one word from Henry Bellamy would cinch it.”

“We” meant Neely and her two partners. Neely’s formal name was Ethel Agnes O’Neill (“Isn’t that a pistol?” she had exclaimed), but the nickname of Neely had stuck since childhood, and since she was one third of a dance team called The Gaucheros, there was no need to do anything about the unwieldy names.

Anne’s acquaintance with Neely had begun with a casual nod in the hall and had rapidly moved into a warm friendship. Neely looked like a gurgling, exuberant teen-ager. She had a snub nose, large brown eyes, freckles and curly brown hair. And in fact, Neely
was
a teen-ager, a teen-ager who had toured in vaudeville since she was seven.

It was hard to think of Neely as a performer. But one night she had dragged Anne along on a club date at a midtown hotel. And there, a strange transformation had taken place. The freckles vanished under a thick coat of greasepaint, and the childish figure matured with the help of a sleazy sequined dress. It was a passable, pedestrian kind of an act. Two men in frayed sombrero hats and tight pants, gyrating with the inevitable foot stamping and finger clicking designed to pass for Spanish dancing. Anne had seen similar acts in vaudeville back home. But she had never seen anyone like Neely. She wasn’t sure whether Neely was exceptionally good or outrageously bad. She never actually became a part of The Gaucheros. She danced in time with them, spun with them, and bowed with them, but it wasn’t a trio. You watched only Neely.

But without the costume and makeup, sitting on the sagging chair, Neely was just an eager seventeen-year-old girl. The first real friend Anne had ever known.

“I wish I could help you, Neely, but I can’t go to Mr. Bellamy with a personal matter. Our relationship is strictly business.”

“So what? Everybody in town knows he was Helen Lawson’s lover way back and that she still listens to everything he says.”

“He was
what?”

“Her lover. Her guy. Don’t tell me you didn’t know.”

“Neely, where did you hear a silly thing like that?”

“Silly! Geez, you mean nobody told you about it? It was a long time ago, and she’s had three husbands since then, but they were the hottest item around for years. Why do you think I’ve been on your neck about talking to Bellamy? Can you mention it to him tomorrow?”

“I’ll be apartment hunting tomorrow. And Neely, I’ve told you—it just isn’t right, bringing your personal life into the office.”

Neely sighed. “Those fancy manners are gonna stand in your way, Anne. You gotta go in a direct line for the thing you want. Come right out and ask for it.”

“And what happens if you get turned down?”

Neely shrugged. “So what? You’re no worse off than if you haven’t asked. At least this way you give yourself a fifty-fifty chance.”

Anne smiled at Neely’s logic. Neely had no education, but she had the inborn intelligence of a mongrel puppy, plus the added sparkle that causes one puppy to stand out in a litter. This puppy was clumsy, frank and eager, with a streak of unexpected worldliness running through her innocence.