CHAPTER TWO

When silky morgan was ten years old her mother died of tuberculosis in the hospital. They were living on South Street then, the famous street of the song, in South Philadelphia, an area composed of Negroes and some Italians. Her mother had been sick at home for a long time, and after she went away to the hospital Silky’s father came back home for a while to take care of the kids. They lived in a red-brick row house, three stories high, with about twelve people in each small apartment, although in Silky’s family there were only eight, counting her father when he was home. When they came back from the funeral someone had marked up their front door with big splashes of white paint: a skull and crossbones, and the letters TB three feet high. It was the first time her father had cried after her mother’s death; he cried and cursed and pounded on the door with his fist until his knuckles bled. Then he made Arthur, her older brother, get some water and yellow soap and try to scrub off the white paint. They didn’t have enough money to buy paint to cover it up. Her father said it was the goddam Eyetalians who done it—a Brother would never do a low thing like that.

But they couldn’t get the paint off, not Arthur, not her father, and it stayed there, finally peeling, while the seasons changed and the memory of her mother’s soft face gradually became as blurred in her mind as the paint on their door. She dreamed of her mother almost every night. Nobody ever came near them during that time; the neighbors avoided them in the halls and backed away from them on the stairs. Arthur told her TB was catching. She wanted to catch it so she could go to heaven where her mother was. Her father didn’t even wait for the paint to disappear; he disappeared first, telling the woman next door to look after them. She was the only one who didn’t avoid them, although for several weeks she wouldn’t let them play with her kids. Then she relented. And the day Silky knew her father had gone away again, this time for good, although she didn’t know that at the time, the woman next door took her on her lap and hugged her, and said: “I’ll be your Auntie Grace now. I’ll take care of you the best I can, so you come to me when you need a mama.”

Silky didn’t think anybody had ever had a father as handsome and wonderful as hers had been. He was like Santa Claus, disappearing and then coming back, and almost always leaving a little brother or sister behind. Younger than she was Cornelius, then William, then La Jean, then the baby, Cynthia. Her own Christian name was Sarah, although her father had nicknamed her Silky when she was just a baby. Her mother told her she looked exactly like her father. He was tall and strong, with hair black as night; even when he was older, it never had a speck of gray in it. To her he was a sort of celebrity. When he came around everybody was happy. But then after a while he would begin to sit around the apartment doing nothing all day, just looking out the window, and then one morning he would be gone.

Auntie Grace had ten children of her own. Two of them, the twins Cheryl and Beryl, were Silky’s age, and as long as she could remember the three of them had been best friends. They did everything together. And when they were fourteen they all decided that they were going to become famous singers. They were in junior high, and there was a girl in their class named Tamara who wanted to be a singer too. She brought along her older sister, Honey, and the whole bunch of them would meet every day after school to practice popular songs. They learned them off the radio, or hanging around the Record Shack. Honey, who was sixteen, was going around with a boy named Rudolph, who had stolen a phonograph. He stole a whole bunch of new records too, and after school they would hang around his apartment and play the phonograph and try to copy the singers on them until Rudolph got bored and took Honey into the bedroom and threw the rest of them out.

Sex was something Silky took for granted at a very early age. She knew how not to catch a baby long before she was old enough to have to worry about it, but even though she started doing what her friends were doing when she was about fourteen, she didn’t think sex was much. She hated school, but she liked reading, and in one of the books she took out of the library she read that all famous people had to make sacrifices for their goal. She couldn’t give up food, because there was never enough and she was always hungry. Usually she got through the day with a sweet-potato pie from the grocery and two or three nickel Cokes. When her mother had been alive she remembered having lunch money to take to school, but after her mother died and her father went away she never had any. Her older brother, Arthur, who worked in the filling station, gave her money once a week, and the rest of her brothers and sisters ate at Auntie Grace’s. She didn’t like to eat there; Auntie Grace wasn’t her family, and she felt uncomfortable. Many evenings Auntie Grace or Cheryl or Beryl would catch her hanging around down on the street and make her come upstairs to their apartment to eat dinner. Sometimes she was so hungry she had to forget her pride and come along. No, giving up food was out of the question, but she wanted to sacrifice something. She didn’t smoke or drink. She thought of giving up Cokes, but that didn’t seem significant, so finally she decided to give up sex.

That was when she was sixteen. So even though she flirted with the boys at school, hoping one of them would buy her a hamburger or even take her to the Soul Kitchen for a real meal, she managed to stay out of bed with them, knowing in her heart it wasn’t such a sacrifice as she pretended it was because sex meant nothing to her.

Cheryl and Beryl didn’t know who their father was. They pretended that their mother’s boyfriend was their real father, and all their friends went along with the pretense. Their mother’s boyfriend was a nice guy, although once he went after Silky. That was when she was seventeen, and it was one of the things that made her decide to run away to New York. She couldn’t hang around Auntie Grace’s knowing that guy was always looking at her and trying to cop a feel. She thought it was disgusting for an old man like that to go after a kid like her.

She still thought of herself as a kid, even though she plastered her face with make-up she shoplifted from the five-and-ten with Cheryl and Beryl, and teased her hair up high. They were always running around with their hair in rollers in those days, either that or teasing it up to look sophisticated. She had a big bust, and she wore tight Orlon sweaters, mostly hand-me-downs from Auntie Grace’s older daughters; Marie, who worked in a beauty salon and made a lot of money, and Ardra, who worked in a five-and-ten, not the one they stole from. They would never steal from Ardra’s five-and-ten; she might lose her job.

The five girls decided to drop out of school that spring and hitchhike to New York. Auntie Grace didn’t care. She had just lost a baby in the sixth month, and she was always complaining how much work she had taking care of the kids she had already. The five of them were just dying to get out of school. Honey could barely read. It was a big secret about Honey not being able to read—if you really wanted to make her mad at you, you would ask her, “What does that sign say?” Or, “What’s playing at the movies?” She’d either make something up or give you a hell of a smack. Tamara couldn’t read so good herself. She and Honey had had about ten different fathers and nobody ever made them do their homework. Silky remembered when she was only about six, how her mother had watched over her every night to be sure she did her homework, busy as she was with all the rest of the family. She was glad she could read so well now, because with reading you didn’t need school, you could get a whole education by yourself as long as books were free. She swore to herself that after she dropped out of school she would read a whole library book every week, and she did.

One morning Silky and her friends packed everything they owned, which wasn’t much, into shopping bags, and hitched a ride to New York with two guys in a white Cadillac. Honey and Tamara and Cheryl and Beryl drank a lot of beer on the way down and took turns screwing each one of the two guys in the back seat while the other one drove, but Silky told them she had syphilis and they’d catch it. They wanted to take her to the clinic when they reached Manhattan, but she told them she was too embarrassed, and cried, so they let her alone. She had been scared to death that one of the guys might say: “Oh, that’s okay—I have syph too,” but they didn’t. They kept far away from her. She was still keeping to her vow; no sex until she was famous.

Honey and Tamara had an aunt in Harlem, so they all stayed with her for a while, hitching rides downtown all the time so they could hang around music publishers whose names they had found in the phone book. Honey got a job waiting table, but she got fired the next day because she was trying to remember all the orders on account of not being able to write, and she couldn’t read either. Then Silky went to work there and supported the rest of them. Cheryl had a lot of boyfriends who laid bread on her, and Beryl was going steady with a guy who they all suspected pushed dope. He gave them all free pot, and both the twins turned into big heads. Tamara had found herself a white boy named Marvin, who had pimples and lived in the Village. He’d run away from his rich Jewish family in Lefrak City, and he thought it was really a gas to be screwing a black chick. Tamara privately called him the Village Idiot, but he couldn’t do enough for her. So in a way they were all doing their bit to keep the group eating until they got their break.

Summer turned into fall, then winter, and it was cold. They still hadn’t been able to get an audition for anybody, but they practiced every day. Silky was working nights, and the others were dating. Then one night Silky met a guy in the place she was waiting table who knew a lot of people in the music publishing business, and he got the girls an audition. They had named themselves the Satins, but after they auditioned the man at the music company told them they would do better if they made one of them the lead singer, and he made them each try out separately. It was a toss-up between Honey and Silky. Silky said Honey should get the lead singer bit because she was the oldest, but secretly she knew that if anyone got it but her she would just die. Then the man said it should be Silky because she had such an interesting voice. He named the group Silky and the Satins.

The other girls didn’t seem to mind so much at first, because what was a lead singer when they weren’t working anyway? But about a month later the man had them come back to audition again, and then he let them cut a record. It never got anywhere, and that winter they really thought they were going to starve for sure. Honey got pregnant and had an abortion in New Jersey. It cost them every cent they made on the record, and then some, but they had vowed to stick together and this was part of it. After that Honey broke out in a rash from the penicillin she’d had to get in the clinic after the abortion, and they were all afraid she was going to die. The doctor at the clinic said she could never have any more kids, but two months after she got out of the clinic she was knocked up again—from Tamara’s Marvin. Tamara said she was going to kill that little Jew bastard, but the other girls talked sense into her and rich Marvin paid for Honey’s abortion, at a Village doctor who was much better than the one in New Jersey, and after that he really couldn’t do enough for Tamara because he was so upset. Tamara said she was thinking of marrying him to give his family a heart attack, so then she could inherit all that money.

Silky didn’t like to see the girls getting hard this way. They had all had such fun when they were kids together on South Street, but being alone in New York had changed them. Sometimes at night, alone in her corner of the crowded apartment, she cried, pulling her coat over her head so none of the others would hear her. Maybe they should just all go home and get married. But even when she was crying she couldn’t believe that was what would make them happy. No, they had to make it, they just had to. Otherwise she’d end up like her mother and die young, she was sure of it.

She became obsessed with death. A rat could come and bite her in the night and she would die. She could get TB. Maybe TB ran in families. Maybe she would get malnutrition and her teeth would fall out. She bought vitamins at the drugstore and ate everything that looked healthy at the restaurant where she worked. She began to fill out, and even though she had never felt more miserable she had never looked prettier. She was really getting curvy. She looked at her body in the cracked mirror on the bathroom door and thought how really good she would look in a slinky evening gown when she got to be a big singing star and could perform at the Apollo.

Then they cut another record, but this time it got a little attention and they made some money. The next song they cut was “You Left Me.” Silky thought of her father when she sang it, and the way she loved him and felt about him leaving her made her voice come out in a new way she had never dreamed possible. Listening to the record she thought: My God! That girl has really lived and suffered! Who would dream it was only me?

The song became a hit. They even played it in the restaurant where she worked, and while she was slinging dishes she hummed along with it, but nobody ever knew it was her. Then she quit her job.

They cut “Take Me Back,” and it was a hit, too. Everybody who was anybody in the business had heard of Sam Leo Libra, who made people into stars, so Silky and the Satins took their two records to the Libra office listed in the phone book and found only a secretary there. The secretary mailed the records to Sam Leo Libra in California.

Then one day, in late winter, almost a year from the time the girls had hitched to New York, they were in a big hotel suite talking to this terrifying, marvelous man himself, and he had one of their two records spinning on his stereo set, and he was looking at them with distaste as if they were bugs.

“That make-up has to go,” he said. “Mr. Nelson will tell you how to make up. Your hair is ridiculous. He’ll fit you with some wigs. I’ll lay out the money and you can pay me back. I’m going to handle all your money; you obviously don’t look competent. You’ll get enough to live on. I want you out of Harlem and into a downtown hotel. You can all stay in the same room; I’m sure you’re used to it. If anybody asks you, you’ll say you each have your own room. You are never, do you hear me, never to invite men up to your room. Do you hear me?”

“Yes, Mr. Libra,” they chorused.

“None of you finished high school, I suppose?”

“No, sir,” Honey said.

“I trust you can read and write?”

“Oh, yes, sir.” None of them looked at Honey.

“Well, then, look at this contract, sign all of the copies, and return them to me. This contract says I’ll be your manager and publicist for a period of one year. If you’re good and it works out, we can renew it. If you’re bad and it doesn’t work out, you’re all out on your asses.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’m going to present you as sweet, clean-cut, wholesome American girls. That means no night clubs, no drinking in public, no pot, no dope, and no swearing. Do you know what swearing is?”

The girls nodded.

“It is fuck, damn, shit, and screw,” Mr. Libra enumerated. “It is also cunt, cock, balls and hell and anything else your evil little minds can think up. You are never to refer to white people as honkys. Every time you curse or swear I will dock ten dollars from your allowances. I want you to get used to even thinking clean. You are never to say anything controversial, and if anyone asks you about civil rights you say you are all for it of course and then shut up. You are never to discuss Black Power. I doubt if you can carry on an intelligent conversation about the subject anyway.”

Silky looked at Honey and Tamara nervously. They were the two with tempers, and she was afraid Honey might blow it and tell this man to go shove it up his ass and rotate. She fixed them with a desperate stare. They were seething, but they kept still. She hated him as much as the other girls did, but she knew he was the only man who could make them become famous. They would have to listen to him. Maybe he knew more about how ladies acted than they did. After all, they had almost raised themselves. It would be nice to be a lady.

Mr. Libra thrust a pile of contracts at them. “Take them home and read them and sign them. And wash that filthy hair. Tomorrow I want you here at nine sharp for styling, make-up, and gown fittings. I’m going to put you on television.”

“Television!” The girls looked at each other wonderstruck.

“Shee-it!” Honey said in delight.

“That’s ten dollars,” said Mr. Libra.

“Oh, f … fudge!” Honey stammered. Ten dollars was a lot of bread.

“Very good,” said Mr. Libra. He handed them some money. “Here’s fifty dollars for carfare and shampoo for all of you. Be back tomorrow. Good-bye.”

They left the suite, counting their money, and took a taxi, the first taxi they had been in since they got to New York.

“That Whitey sure is one ugly-lookin’ motherfucker, ain’t he?” Honey said in the cab.

“He sure is,” Tamara agreed. “When he was born I bet they threw out the baby and saved the afterbirth.”

The girls laughed. “That motherfucker talked to us like we was his maids,” Beryl said.

“Carfare!” Honey stormed. “Up his syphilitic ass!”

“Cocksucker!” said Cheryl.

Silky decided the present was none too soon to start thinking clean, so she said nothing.

The next morning they showed up promptly at Mr. Libra’s hotel suite, and for five hours they were terrorized by a nitty faggot hairdresser named Mr. Nelson, who was wearing a really sharp white leather suit. He fitted all the girls with Buster Brown wigs and a couple of extra hairpieces to change off. Then the dress designer arrived—Franco, who was very young but completely bald—and he and Mr. Libra consulted on what the girls were to wear. No one asked them for their opinion on anything, so the five of them kept a sullen silence. They had been through a lot in life, but they had never met anyone like Mr. Libra or Mr. Nelson or that Franco, so the truth was they were rather awed.

“I’m going to dress them all alike,” Franco said.

“But no sequins,” said Mr. Libra. “I’m sick and tired of sequins—you see them on every singing group in the business. The Supremes invented sequins. I don’t know how anyone else gets a chance; there isn’t a sequin left on Seventh Avenue after those three get through. I want Silky and the Satins to be unique. And no fishtail mermaid dresses, either. I want them to look young.”

Franco suggested baby dresses, but Mr. Libra said his wife and all her friends wore baby dresses and they were a hundred years old. Young, he kept saying, young, young. Silky privately thought that she would like nothing better than to look like Diana Ross of the Supremes, who was her idol, except Diana Ross was awfully old—twenty-four or something. Finally Mr. Libra and Franco decided to dress them all in knicker suits like little boys.

“We’re going to look like a bunch of dikes!” Tamara protested.

“I know you’d rather look like whores,” Libra said, “but I’m managing you now, and you’ll do what I say.”

“Couldn’t we wear tuxedos?” asked Honey.

“Oh?” said Libra. “So you want to look like elderly dikes?” That shut them all up for good, and Franco said he would make them knicker suits in black velveteen, burgundy velveteen, and white brocade to start off, with maybe one in a nice plaid wool for the daytime teen-age show Libra had booked them on.

It was the first the girls had heard of their booking. “What teenage show?” they chorused. “What show? What show?”

“The Let It All Hang Out Show,” Libra said triumphantly. “You’ll be on next month.”

The girls squealed with delight. The Let It All Hang Out Show was the top afternoon teen-age song and dance show on television, and everyone they knew at home who had a TV set always watched it.

The next morning Mr. Libra installed the girls in the Chelsea Hotel, and after that there was a round of more fittings, more experiments with make-up with Mr. Nelson until all the girls could do their own make-up properly, both for street wear and public appearances, and then there were their dance lessons, which they all loathed. Mr. Libra even put them all on a diet to clear up their skins and keep them trim. He constantly corrected their grammar, and gradually they were all becoming conscious that there was a world they knew nothing about.

Silky got a card to the Public Library, and faithfully read her book a week, carrying it with her all the time because there was so little free time to read now. The other girls kidded her about it, and said she was carrying a book so she could meet an intellectual fellow and that she never actually read it.

Their first album was making it big, and the new single, “Lemme Live Now,” was in the top ten. The money was pouring in, but they never saw any of it, except their allowances and living expenses. It didn’t matter, though, because they had more money now than they had ever seen before. They haunted the five-and-ten, as purchasers now, and were thrilled to flaunt a ten-dollar bill to pay for a lipstick.

Meanwhile, Mr. Libra booked them on every free benefit in town. All those shows needed free talent to fill up the bill, and were glad Silky and the Satins were so available. Mr. Libra said the exposure was invaluable, because eventually they would be invited on the Tonight Show. Silky was amazed that there were so many free benefits. You could work your whole life away and never make a cent. But it was thrilling to see all those other real stars in person, and the dresses and jewels on the rich ladies in the audience fascinated her. She made it a point to study them carefully so that when she got to handle her own money she would know how to dress.

Their room in the Chelsea was a shambles, with clothes and empty boxes, bags, and tissue paper flung everywhere. The twins’ cousin, Lester, arrived from Philadelphia with his girl friend and moved in with them, sleeping on the floor, because with the five beds the sofa had been removed. The girls decided that family was not considered men, and Mr. Libra could not possibly object, but anyway they did not tell him. Then the twins’ sister, Ardra, arrived, and after her, Silky’s brother, Cornelius. The girls sent down for more pillows and blankets, and all their guests settled comfortably on the floor. Rich Marvin wanted Tamara to live with him in the Village, but she thought the Chelsea was more fun. The boys bought beer and Bourbon with money the girls gave them, and there were parties every night. Sometimes they would buy big bags of fish and chips and break their diets, drink and stuff themselves, and dance and sing to the stereo the girls had chipped in to buy. They bought about a hundred and fifty records, and then they bought a color television set, and nobody ever got much sleep except Silky, who was terrified that she would lose her voice if she didn’t take care of herself, and who had long ago learned how to fall asleep through any kind of racket.

The Chelsea was really a groovy place, full of nuts like themselves, and they made a few new friends. One of them was a good-looking black boy named Hatcher Wilson, who was a singer, too, and played the electric guitar. He was twenty-four, and he liked Silky. She liked him, too, but she remembered her vow, and she told him she wanted him for a friend, not a boyfriend. He hung around anyway, mainly because she didn’t pay much attention to him and he wasn’t used to that. Hatcher was a real ladies’ man, and terribly vain about his looks and his clothes. The other girls thought Silky was crazy not to get some use out of a fine-looking stud like him, and they flirted with him and made him feel right at home.

“If you don’t grab that Hatcher Wilson,” Tamara kept threatening, “I’m goin’ to grab him and marry him.” Tamara was going to marry everybody; if it wasn’t rich Marvin to get his money, it was her own cousin Lester to raise halfwits.

“I ain’t goin’ to marry anybody,” Honey said. “Not me. I been married a hundred times.”

They all wondered about Mrs. Libra, how she ever could have married an ugly freak like Mr. Libra. “What do they ever do in bed?” Honey would ask, and they would all howl with laughter trying to imagine that ape in bed with his wife.

“She jus’ throws him a banana and says: Come git it, King Kong!” Beryl screeched, rolling on the bed with laughter.

They all agreed Lizzie Libra was a good-looking woman. “I bet she’s got somebody else,” Cheryl said wisely.

“You think so?”

“Yeah,” Cheryl said. “Wouldn’t you, married to that?”

“She looks kind of dried up,” Honey said.

“Don’t you kid yourself,” Cheryl said. “Did you ever look at her eyes? That woman got real man-hungry eyes.”

They all decided to take a good look at Mrs. Libra’s eyes the next time they saw her.

It was a good time, that month before their first television show. It was a real good time. Later Silky was to look back on it and remember it as the last good time of her life.

The girls rehearsed the Let It All Hang Out Show for two days. Silky was so nervous she couldn’t eat a thing the entire time, except for many cups of tea laced with honey for her throat. She kept feeling her throat close up, as if she would never be able to get a note out of it, and although she was not a religious person she prayed almost constantly that everything would be all right. The only thing that kept her going was the young director, Dick Devere. He was a tall, skinny, distinguished-looking man, with a calm, professional attitude that set her at ease whenever he spoke to her. It was only when she was not actually the focus of his attention that the panic began again. This show wasn’t just one of those free benefits; it was the big time.

From the moment Dick Devere first spoke to her, or actually to all the girls, Silky admired him. He had this real cultural way of speaking, the way he pronounced words. And he dressed in a way that wasn’t at all sharp but certainly was hip. She knew his clothes were expensive. And she liked the way he moved, sort of relaxed but quick. She would watch him moving about the set, directing the other acts, and she thought he was kind of sexy. That surprised her, because it had been such a long time since she had thought of any man as sexy, or even as anything. Then, after she sang for the first time, she had the idea maybe he was noticing her too.

She didn’t at all hold it against him that he was white. Silky had never been prejudiced. In fact, she kind of liked it. He was nothing like pimply Marvin, or that ape Mr. Libra, or the cruddy Eyetalian boys in her old neighborhood. He was real classy. She wondered if he had a wife or a girl friend.

They did the show in their new plaid knicker suits, with little red ascot ties and their Buster Brown wigs. They looked groovy. And they had never sounded better, since they were only lip synching to their records, so it was crazy of her to worry about losing her voice, although logic had nothing to do with it. After all, someday soon they would be doing their singing live, on an even bigger TV show than this, and it would be a heck of a mess if she couldn’t sing now, just because there were millions of people watching what was coming over the camera at their end. All the girls were aware of the unseen audience, and the thing was, you had to sing out loud anyway, or it didn’t look real. When they did “You Left Me,” as usual Silky got carried away and changed some of the words without even knowing it. The girls knew it, though, and they were furious.

“Can’t you even remember that old song?” Honey said, mad.

“I’m sorry.”

“You certainly had enough practice,” Honey said. “I know the words.”

“I know the words,” Silky said.

“That girl sure is dumb,” Honey said to the others.

Dick Devere just laughed. After the show he asked Silky to come have a drink with him. The girls raised their eyebrows when they saw her go off with him, but Silky didn’t care. She was floating on air. All the way to the bar she was wondering whether she dared order a real drink even though Mr. Libra had told them they must never drink in public.

They went to a little bar down the street from the television studio. There were a lot of television people there. Silky had changed into her own clothes; a navy-blue wool sailor suit with a white blouse, and she was still wearing her wig and her television make-up. She glanced at herself in the mirror over the bar when they walked in and she thought she looked real good. They sat in a booth near the back, and Dick Devere ordered a Scotch on the rocks.

“Bourbon and Coke,” she said recklessly.

“Cigarette?”

“Thank you, I don’t smoke.”

“Good girl.”

She chewed on a nail.

“How did you ever get the name Silky?”

“On account of ma’ voice,” she said, because it was what Mr. Libra had told her to say.

“You’re going to be very famous one day,” Dick Devere said.

“You think so?”

“There’s no doubt about it. I can always tell. I see hundreds of singers, but none of them have what you do.” He smiled at her. “What’s that book you’re reading?”

Silky showed him. It was The Death of a President.

“I’m glad you’re not reading Valley of the Dolls,” he said.

“Oh, I read that too.”

“You read a lot,” he said, sounding surprised.

“I read a book a week. I really read them too; I don’t just carry them around like the girls say.”

“You don’t get along too well with the other girls, do you,” he said. It was a statement, not a question.

“Oh, sure I do!” Silky protested. “We get along just fine. They’re great girls.”

“I think they’re jealous of you,” he said.

“Oh, no, they’re not. We all get equal money.”

“That doesn’t make any difference. They know you’re going to be a star someday and leave them far behind, and what’s worse, they know you deserve it and they don’t. Don’t you notice they’re jealous?”

“I’m just too busy singing,” Silky said. The drinks came and she gulped down half of hers. It made her feel warm and more relaxed. “I’m trying to figure out where you’re from by the way you talk,” she said, “but I can’t.”

“I’m from the Middle West. What you’re listening to is the accent I learned in a short stint at radio-announcer school. I did that for a while after college, while I was trying to break into directing. Where are you from?”

“South Philadelphia.”

“Then why do you have a Southern accent?”

“I don’t,” Silky said.

“Sometimes you do.”

“My parents were from Georgia,” she said, remembering.

“Are they still alive?”

“No,” she lied. “They’re both dead.” Well, maybe her father was dead; she hadn’t heard from him in years.

“I think you should take acting lessons,” he said thoughtfully. “Has Libra talked to you about that?”

“No. We’re taking dancing lessons now.”

“Well, you should ask him about an acting class. Eventually you’re going to do a Broadway musical, and you should know how to act.”

She had forgotten about the rest of her drink. The things he was saying to her were making her dizzy. “What Broadway musical? Me? What are we going to play, a black Little Women?”

“Not we,” he corrected. “You.”

“I’ll never leave the girls,” she said.

“You left them to come out with me,” he said. She realized he was teasing her.

“That’s different,” she said.

“Not so different. People are going to seek you out, want to see you on your own. You’re going to have a life of your own. I’m just telling you this because I want you to know it isn’t going to be so easy for you to get along with the girls after a while, and I don’t want it to be a shock for you. It’s always better to be prepared.”

“I don’t go out with anybody, and I never minded who they went out with,” Silky said. She finished her drink.

He ordered two more. “Don’t you know anybody in New York?”

She thought about telling him about her vow and decided against it. Telling anybody might break the magic. “Oh, I know a few boys,” she said.

“But you don’t like any of them?”

“I’m too busy to date,” she said. Then she realized what a dumb thing that was to say—he might think she didn’t want to see him ever again. “I mean, I guess I don’t like them much.”

He smiled. He seemed to know a lot of things she didn’t have to bother to tell him. She couldn’t decide if he made her nervous or not. He certainly was sexy. She had decided that, anyway. He was as sexy as hell.

“Have you always read a lot?” he asked.

“No, just since I quit school. I didn’t think quitting school was any reason why I should stop my education.”

“Have you ever read The Wind in the Willows?”

“I never heard of it,” she said.

“It’s a children’s book, but like all good children’s books it’s really for grown-ups. You should read it. And read Mary Poppins.”

“I saw the movie,” she said.

“It’s much better than the movie. Movies of children’s books are terrible. The great thing about a children’s book is you have to use your imagination. Once you see the people in front of your eyes on the screen you have to go by the director’s idea of what they should be like instead of your own.” He took a little leather-covered note pad out of his pocket, and a slim gold ballpoint pen and began to write. “I’m writing down a couple of books you’ve probably missed that I think you’ll enjoy.”

Well, get her! She was sitting here in this bar with all the television people and a big director twice her age was talking to her about books and movies as if she was an educated person! Shee-it … I mean, wow! She sipped the new drink. Somebody had put money in the jukebox and it was playing “Lemme Live Now.” It was like a dream come true. She would have paid somebody to put her record on now! That was her voice there, and here was her body here, having a drink or two with this groovy guy, and oh, wow, who had ever heard of a gold ballpoint pen! She made up her mind to buy one just like it tomorrow, and a leather-covered notebook too, and write down little things in it.

He tore out the page and gave it to her. “Where are you staying?”

“The Chelsea Hotel.”

He nodded approvingly. Then he wrote that down in the little notebook, and put it away in his pocket. “I’m not going to do television forever,” he said. He sipped his Scotch. “Eventually I’m going to do a new kind of musical, using techniques of film and the total environment of the discothèques. Have you been to Schwartz’s Lobotomy?”

She shook her head no. It sounded like a delicatessen.

He looked at his watch. “Known to the regulars as the Lobe. We have time to get something to eat before it opens, if you’re not doing anything.”

“I have nothing to do for the rest of my life,” Silky said cheerfully. At that moment it seemed as if she didn’t.

He took her to a French restaurant where she didn’t know what she was eating, which didn’t matter much as she hardly ate a thing. She had half a glass of wine. Then they took a cab to the Village, to an ugly-looking warehouse with a lot of trash piled up outside. Inside it was like another world. There was a big room with a round balcony hanging in the center of it, suspended by big things that went right through the ceiling and led to by a catwalk. The balcony, suspended by the foundations, was the only thing in the room that was not shaking. The walls, ceiling and floor were covered with moving patterns of psychedelic colors and flashing lights, and the whole room was shaking like a bowlful of Jell-O: the floor they were trying to stand on, the walls, the ceiling. The tables were just tiny silver boxes, and they were shaking too, so the drinks were anchored to them with rubber plungers, but the liquid kept splashing out anyway on to the customers’ clothes. The music was deafening, and the room was evidently wired to vibrate to the sounds. People were trying to dance and stand up at the same time, and most of them looked seasick. Silky could smell pot in the air. She wondered if pimply Marvin took Tamara here, and she hoped he did so they could see her with Dick Devere.

“The ultimate in masochism,” Dick said.

“What?”

“This place. It’s my theory that all discothèques are experiences in masochism for the people who go there, and the reason this one is so popular right now is because it’s the most sadistic. Look there.”

He led her to the side of the room where there was a long line of people waiting to get into a small room with a sign over it: De-vibration Chamber. That room wasn’t shaking at all. There were chairs to sit on in the room, and admission was a dollar. The room was so small that only six people could go in at a time, which was why there was the line. The people waiting to get in looked sicker by the minute. Silky didn’t feel too well herself.

Then he took her back to the center of the room. He refused a table and he didn’t want to dance; he just stood there watching professionally, taking it all in. Once in a while he would nod to himself. She didn’t see how he could use any of this on his show but she supposed he had to know about everything that was going on. She felt like they were two outsiders, just standing there. It was a funny feeling, but kind of nice. They were out of it, but special. It was like everybody else was out of it and they were in.

“That’s the V.I.P. balcony,” he said, pointing. “We can sit there if you feel sick, they’ll know me. You see, the celebrities can come here and watch and not have to be tortured. It’s the only way the management can make them feel like they’re celebrities.”

There were shades all around the hanging balcony in front of each of the tables, and some of the celebrities had pulled their shades up so they didn’t have to watch anything at all, in case that made them sick. What a laugh, Silky thought. It costs fifteen dollars a couple to get in here and then they don’t even look at it.

“Okay,” Dick said. “Let’s split.”

It was midnight, and he took her to an ice cream parlor on Third Avenue and bought her a sundae about ten inches tall. She would have rather had an Alka Seltzer, and she just played with the sundae, pretending to eat it. Which was just as well, she thought, because fudge sauce made her break out. The sundae cost three dollars and fifty cents and she was glad he didn’t seem to notice that she had hardly touched it. He must make a lot of money, she thought, or else he’s really a gentleman.

She was feeling much better now that they were away from the Lobe, and she tried to remember that groovy thing he’d said there, about discothèques being sadistic or maso-something, and try to get it right so she could say it to somebody sometime and impress them. But he kept talking, saying more groovy things, and she was too busy trying to keep up with what he was saying now to keep her mind on what he’d said an hour ago. Sha—being out with him was like being out with ten people!

And then he took her to the Chelsea and told the cab to wait. Maybe she had bored him, she thought, beginning to feel very depressed. He didn’t even hint to come up, he just told the cab to wait. She wondered if he was going to kiss her good night or anything, but he just took her hand and held it a long time and looked at her.

“I had a wonderful time,” he said.

“Oh, I did, too,” she said. “I really did.” She thought for a moment of asking him up, but she realized they had turned the room into a pigsty, and Leroy and his girl friend and Cornelius and Ardra would be sleeping on the floor, and he would probably run out of there in horror. “I’ll get those books,” she said.

He smiled. “I envy you, reading them for the first time. Good night.” And then he went away.

She pretended to be walking to the elevator and then when she saw the cab had pulled away she sat down on a chair in the lobby so she could be alone to think. She didn’t know what to make of him. She had thought all evening, until the end, that he really liked her. He certainly wasn’t shy. Maybe he thought she was repulsive. Maybe he wouldn’t go to bed with a black chick. Maybe he was gay. No, she was sure he wasn’t gay. Maybe he had a jealous woman at home. She’d have to get up her courage and worm it out of Mr. Libra in the morning. Boy, she was stupid! She should have asked him something about himself instead of letting him talk about all those arty things at dinner. But she had been so flattered and interested it hadn’t mattered at all about his private life at the time. Maybe the way he acted was just the way people on a date acted in New York when they were his age and sophisticated. She thought that was probably it. He respected her. Wasn’t that a gas! He respected her!

When she got upstairs everybody was having a good time, playing their records and the television set all at the same time, and nobody even asked her if she had had a good time. The girls pretended she hadn’t even been out. Only her own little brother Cornelius finally asked her if she’d had fun, and she was so glad somebody had asked that she almost cried. Honey was in bed, not asleep yet, and Silky noticed that all the girls had taken off their television make-up, except Honey, as usual. She began to cream her face and finally she turned to Honey and said as sweetly as she could: “Hey, do you want some of this?”

“What for?” Honey said, in a very mean voice.

“To take off your make-up.”

“Kiss my ass,” Honey said, and turned over and pulled the covers over her head.

“What’s the matter with her tonight?” Silky asked the others. Nobody answered her. She felt her heart go up in her throat. Dick was right; they were jealous of her. But they had been her best friends for ever and ever—they couldn’t just stop liking her. She turned to Cheryl and Beryl, who had always been her best friends.

“What do you say I call down for some fish and chips?”

“Didn’t he feed you?” Cheryl said nastily.

“Sure, but I thought … it might be fun.”

“We’re not hungry,” Beryl said flatly. She turned the volume up on the stereo set.

“I don’t know what you’re all so mad about,” Silky yelled over the noise of the record. “He’s never going to call me again.”

“Why not? Did he find out how frigid you are?” Tamara yelled back.

“It’s not always like that,” Silky yelled.

“Oh yeah? Did he pay you for balling him? Is that why you want to buy all us poor niggers fish and chips?” The other girls laughed.

Something in Silky snapped. “You don’t know anything!” she screamed. “You take Marvin for everything you can get. What would you know about going out with a nice guy?”

“I guess you would,” Tamara yelled, her face getting purple with rage. “You only go out with big white directors, you ass-licker. Why don’t you fuck old ape-face Libra?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Beryl said. “Climb up a tree with him.”

“Silky fucks Libra, Silky fucks Libra,” they all began chanting. Her brother Cornelius just stood there looking stupid. Silky ran into the bathroom and slammed the door. She was shaking. It was like a nightmare. She realized it wasn’t just her date with Dick tonight, although that had been the last straw because he had so obviously singled her out to take her out in public with him to a fancy place where his friends might be. No, it had been coming for a long time, only she had been too stupid to notice it. It had really happened at the show today, when the Satins realized Silky was their star. They had to realize it because everybody else realized it. But it wasn’t her fault. They had let her be the lead singer. She had pretended she hadn’t even wanted to be. She hadn’t asked for more money than they were getting, or a different costume than they were wearing. It hadn’t been her idea to stand in front of them at her own microphone; the lead singer always did that. She hadn’t flirted with Dick Devere. She hadn’t done a damn thing. And that was the shit and piss of it. She didn’t have to do a damn thing—it was all going to happen to her just because God had given her this voice and she could sing. She wanted to run out into the street, but she didn’t have a place to stay. Was this what being a star was going to mean? Having Mr. Libra treat her like trash all day and then having the girls treat her like a hated enemy every night? Oh, my God, Dick … she thought, and she realized she missed him. He was the only person who understood her. She wished she knew his number so she could call him. She pounded the sink with her fist and looked at her face, ugly now with rage, and all the make-up off, in the mirror. Without her wig, with her short, straightened hair all smashed down, she looked like a boy. If he saw her now he wouldn’t like her any more either. She was nothing to look at. But he hadn’t seemed to care about how she looked. He thought she was a nice person. He would understand. She couldn’t stay here with them, not after what they had said to her.

She wiped off the last of the cold cream with astringent and combed her hair so it didn’t look so much like a horrible crew cut. Then she went out of the bathroom. The girls continued to ignore her. Cornelius, who had always been a cry-baby depending on her to settle his fights, was just looking at her trying to figure out what the fuss was all about. Silky picked up her purse and her jacket and walked out of the room.

Downstairs in the lobby phone booth she looked up Dick Devere in the phone book and called him. Her hand was shaking so much she could hardly get the dime into the little slot, but she felt icy cold inside. He answered after two rings.

“Yes?”

“It’s Silky. I’m sorry to bother you, but you were right.” Then she burst into tears.

“What’s the matter?” he asked. “What is it? I can’t hear you. What happened? Oh, the hell with it, have you got a pencil?”

“Yes,” she sobbed.

“Take down my address and come right over here. I’d come get you but I’m not dressed.”

She found an eyebrow pencil in her handbag and scribbled his address on the wall. She remembered it anyway from the phone book. Then she got a cab and went to his apartment, which was not too far away, and by the time she got there she realized with surprise and triumph that she had done quite an extraordinary thing, because this was really what she had wanted to do all along.

Dick Devere lived in an apartment in a brownstone. Silky pushed the buzzer next to his name, and went upstairs. He opened the door, dressed in a white terry-cloth bathrobe, and she could see the apartment was dark. He put his arm around her and cuddled her head to his chest, casually locking the door behind her with his other hand.

“There, there,” he said.

It was so dark she couldn’t see how awful she looked with all her make-up off and her face swollen from crying. She could hardly see him either, just a white glimmer in the light from the street lamp outside the big window. “There, there,” he kept saying, patting her, and he led her into the bedroom and right to bed.

She thought briefly about her vow while he was undressing her, and then she didn’t think about it any more because he was kissing her. It was lovely, and she thought maybe she loved him. He knew just what to do and it wasn’t at all like those boys when she was a kid who just shoved it in. Oh, my God, he was divine … Was this what sex was like? If she had known this was what it was all about, she would never have been able to give it up. She’d heard plenty of talk about all these things he was doing, but nobody had ever told her how groovy and wild and really marvelous feeling it felt. So this was what all the older girls did with their boyfriends! And it was a good thing he knew what to do, because he was enormous. She certainly hadn’t expected that.

He really knew everything there was to know about loving, and she was sure sex wasn’t always like this, that what was so fantastic was him, what he was all about, what he was thinking, how he felt about her. He was a real man. She didn’t think there was anybody like him in the whole world. I love you, she thought, I love you, I love you. She thought he was whispering “I love you” too, but she wasn’t sure.

When it was over they curled up together with their arms around each other. Her eyes had become accustomed to the darkness and she could see him. He looked happy. She knew she was happy.

“Silky,” Dick whispered.

“What?”

“I can’t sleep like this, you’ll have to get over on the other side of the bed. Do you feel better now?”

“Yes,” she said, and reluctantly inched away from him.

“Good,” he said, and a moment later he was asleep.

She couldn’t think much about that because she felt too marvelous. This had been one of the biggest days of her life. He certainly didn’t have a wife or any girl living with him. I wonder if I have a boyfriend now, she thought, looking at him, and she wished more than anything in the world, more even than to be a star, that it could be true.

She didn’t see the girls until the next day in Mr. Libra’s office, and no one mentioned the fact that she had been out all night, or asked her where she had slept. Silky hoped the girls would think she’d had to rent a room at the Y, or go back uptown to Harlem. She tried to look martyred, but she was bubbling with happiness. The truth was, she realized regretfully, the girls really didn’t know much about her, how she thought, what she dreamed. They knew she wanted to sing and they knew she read books, but actually she had never had a private conversation with any of them. She’d just gone along with what they wanted, sharing their jokes, kidding around, trying to be part of the gang. She realized now that none of the others had tried to be part of the gang at the expense of their own wants; they’d balled any guy they wanted and spent their money on their own clothes and make-up and perfume and gone their own way. She was the one who’d worked in that restaurant while they were out balling, she was the one who sang lead and carried the group. She was the one who’d had to memorize all those lyrics while they just went “ooh, ooh, ooh” in back of her. She wondered if they were sorry they had driven her out of their room into the night, and then she began to realize that she would never really know if they were sorry because she was their meal ticket and they had to be nice to her or there would be no Silky and the Satins. She’d always considered herself a cool and tough little chick, but now Silky realized there were depths of toughness she hadn’t even reached yet. A year ago, when they started the group, she never would have believed they would be treating each other the way they were now, or that she would be able to accept how important she was and how much they needed her. And who was she? She wasn’t even sure she was a good singer. She’d never taken a lesson; people just seemed to like her voice and her delivery. Maybe she was a fake, and she’d conned the girls into believing she was necessary to them.

Mr. Libra was telling them that he’d hired someone to work up an act for them and that they’d begin to do bookings in small clubs out of town. Then they’d come back and do another Let It All Hang Out Show. The reaction to the show they had done the day before had been excellent, and now the clubs were willing to have them. They were going to need more costumes, and he was going to let them have two rooms instead of the one they now had.

Silky breathed a sigh of relief. Two rooms was better than one, but what she really wanted was a room of her own so the girls couldn’t pick on her. She’d left Dick in the morning and he said he would call her, but he hadn’t said anything about her coming to live with him and she certainly wasn’t going to ask. If she did, she might lose him. When their meeting was finished, she asked Mr. Libra if she could have a word with him. The girls gave her a look that could kill and left.

“Well?” Mr. Libra said.

“Mr. Libra, I hate to tell you this, but things have gotten real bad between me and the girls. They seem to hate me. I think they’re jealous. They’re making me miserable and it’s bad for my work. I think I should have a room of my own. I’ll pay for part of it out of my allowance.”

“You think if you have your own room they’ll be less jealous?”

“No, I guess they’ll be even madder.”

“Isn’t there even one of them you can get along with?”

“No,” Silky said. “They stick together.”

“You want me to talk to them?”

“Oh, no!” she said, frightened. “You don’t know them! That would fix me for sure.”

“I don’t care how you girls get along privately,” Libra said, “but I don’t ever want to see any sign of a feud in front of anyone or I’ll get rid of all of you. I don’t need that. I’ll give you your own room if you’ll make it your responsibility to see that everything is sweetness and light in public. After all, you’re the one they don’t like, according to you. They like each other.”

“Could you explain that to them? Tell them that you’re giving me my own room to get me out of their sight, not because I’m the star or anything?”

Mr. Libra smiled nastily. “Do you think they’ll believe that?”

“Well, they’ll never believe it if I tell them.”

“Don’t I have enough to do without worrying about your schoolgirl feuds?” he exploded.

Silky felt herself trembling. That man always scared her to death. But she wasn’t going to back down now, because not getting her own room would be worse than anything Mr. Libra could do to her.

“I think this would be the best thing to do,” Silky said, trying not to sound frightened.

“Do you think I’m the keeper of a bunch of juvenile delinquents? You girls think you’re professionals, but you still act like slum bunnies.”

“I’m sorry, sir, but you’re the only one I can turn to.”

“I suppose if you don’t get your own way you’ll end up shacking up elsewhere anyway, probably with some guy,” Mr. Libra said in disgust.

Silky didn’t answer.

“All right,” he said, and reached for the phone. “Get out. You’ll get your own room. I’ll tell the girls. You can move your things this afternoon.”

“Thank you, Mr. Libra.” But he waved her away, already talking to the desk at the hotel, asking for the manager, and she ran out of the suite.

Now that she had her own room it was much easier to talk to Dick on the phone, when he finally did call that evening, and she could go and come as she pleased. She bought a radio, because after chipping in for the room rent she didn’t have enough to pay for her own TV set, but Silky was glad anyway just to have the quiet and privacy. Rehearsals started for their new act, and there were new songs to learn. She saw the girls at rehearsal, at dance class, and in Mr. Libra’s office, but they never asked her to have meals with them and she usually picked up something at the delicatessen to take to her room or forgot to eat at all. Her brother Cornelius moved in with her for a while, but soon found it boring, and moved in with some kids he’d met who lived in the Village, and that was the last of him except when he needed money.

Now Dick was her only friend. She saw him every other night, and she never asked him what he did when he was not with her. She thought he might be working, or more likely with other girls, but she also knew enough not to ask any questions. He always asked her what she did, and she told him truthfully that she read, studied her new lyrics, and went to bed early.

She had no interest in looking for other men. Now that she had her own room, Hatcher Wilson really thought he was going to get in at last, but she kept telling him no, and she told him not to waste his money taking her out to dinner because she didn’t want to be his girl friend. Once in a while she had a Coke with him in the hotel bar, always a Coke and always just one, so he wouldn’t have to spend much money, and only because she wanted the girls to see her with him and forget about Dick Devere. But even that plan backfired, because by now Hatcher had balled each one of the other girls, and they were jealous because he still liked Silky the best.

She wished she could like him more. He was a good-looking boy and dressed well, and he was talented in her field so they should have a lot in common. But he had nothing to talk about. He kidded around, and flattered her, and bragged, and they talked about their work, but she might have been anybody. Hatcher had never read a book in his life and didn’t intend to. He thought women were to look at, and show off with him when he went places, and something to screw, but that was all. His aspirations were something he shared with his buddies in his own group; the guys, the boys, the gang; and he felt it was somehow unmasculine to share these feelings with Silky. The more she saw Hatcher, the more she missed Dick.

She was becoming dependent on Dick for everything. He advised her how to dress, corrected her grammar, enlarged her vocabulary; but always in a very nice, constructive way—nothing at all like the way Mr. Libra did it. She told Dick she was Pygmalion, and he answered that Pygmalion was the sculptor, not the woman he created, just as Frankenstein was the doctor, not the monster. He’d do that: answer with logic or a correction, but never a real answer.

Silky and the Satins had professional photos taken for publicity, and Silky gave one to Dick. She bought a real silver frame and put the picture in it, figuring even if he didn’t think the picture was much at least the frame was worth something. But whenever she went to his apartment she saw her photo there on his dresser. It made her feel wonderful. She asked him for a photo of himself, but he said he never had owned one.

Sometimes they went out, but more often she went over to his apartment after rehearsals and cooked something. She was a fair cook, but he was teaching her that, too. She figured she’d be a great wife someday, after Dick got through improving her, but she didn’t want to think about that because she knew that as long as he was alive she’d never marry anybody. She didn’t have to bring up the subject; she just knew he would never marry her. She wanted badly to be married before she was dead, because she’d grown up around so many people who’d had children and never married the man that she was determined it would never happen to her. She went to a doctor and got birth-control pills. She was glad her mother was dead and didn’t know that she’d ended up going around with a man who would never marry her, but at least she knew her mother would be glad to know there wouldn’t be any grandchildren who knew they only belonged to their mother.

They went off on tour then, and did some clubs, and Silky always telephoned Dick after the last show was over, at about two thirty in the morning, and of course sometimes he wasn’t there and sometimes he was but she didn’t know for sure if he was alone. She knew men were like that, and she knew you could never mention it or there would be a big fight and the woman always lost. She never mentioned him to the girls and they never mentioned him again either, except that if ever a rich-looking white guy from the audience would come backstage after the show they would give Silky mean looks as if she was going to grab him. She was so busy worrying about remembering everything in the act, the jokes, the bits of business, and all the new lyrics, and worrying about not losing her voice from the strain of doing all those shows, that it gave her something to think about and kept her from caring what the girls did to her. She had her own room on the road, too, and she usually did her make-up upstairs in the room so she wouldn’t have to spend much time with them in the dressing room. The people who came backstage from the audience always flipped over her and wanted her autograph, but usually if they were guys they ended up liking the other girls just as much as they liked her because the other girls were friendlier.

In small towns people recognized them on the street, and asked them for their autographs, and all the girls had taken to wearing their stage make-up and false eyelashes and wigs when they were offstage too, to keep up their image. Silky was just as aware of that as the other girls were, and she always wore big dark glasses in the morning if she had to go out to eat and didn’t have her eye makeup on.

Without Mr. Libra to supervise them every minute, the other girls were gaining weight. Mr. Libra flew to whatever club they were at to be at their opening and supervise them, and he’d hired the twins’ older sister Ardra to be their chaperone, but Ardra didn’t do much except stay with them and enjoy all the attention they were getting, and Mr. Libra had other clients to attend to in New York, so the girls were pretty much independent. After a few clubs all the girls had to have their costumes let out, except for Silky. Mr. Libra discovered that, and he blew the roof off.

“I’m not spending money on four ugly sows,” he screamed. “You see this? This is a list. I want you to write down every single thing you eat and drink, and give me the lists every time I see you. If you lose your looks, you’re going right back to that slum I picked you out of, and I’m going to get four other girls who look just like you and call them the Satins. You think you can’t be replaced? You can be replaced in one minute. One minute! There are hundreds of little black slum bunnies just waiting for me to give them a chance to be the Satins. There are plenty of girls who can go ‘Ooh, ooh, ooh’ just like you’re doing now. Just watch it.”

He didn’t say a word about replacing Silky, and it was so obvious that she was afraid they might take all their anger for Mr. Libra out on her when he was gone; but he had really scared them by yelling at them and when he got finished all the girls were crying and they didn’t look at Silky at all. She thought Mr. Libra had really gone too far. You couldn’t expect people to work and do their best when you told them they were worthless. The girls had feelings, too. Silky was really mad at him. She still liked the girls, and she hated Mr. Libra.

“He has no right to talk like that,” she told the girls when Mr. Libra had left. “He’s the rottenest man in the world. Who does he think he is, Hitler?”

“Hitler? Hitler?” Honey said. “Who the fuck is Hitler? Somebody from one of your books?”

“What did you do, sleep through school?” Silky said. “Hitler was this white cat who went around killing children. He killed only about eight million people, is all. Mostly Jewish people.”

“What the fuck has Jews got to do with them?” asked Ardra, who didn’t like Silky any more either.

“He killed them because they were a minority and he hated them,” Silky said.

“Yeah?” said Tamara. “When was this?”

“Before we were born,” said Silky.

“Yeah? Where did he live?”

“In Germany.”

“Well, no wonder I never heard of him,” said Honey.

“What was his name again?” Tamara asked.

“Hitler.”

“Oh, yeah …” Beryl said. “I remember him. We had him in history class.”

So they began calling Libra Hitler, and it made them feel a little better.

They came back to New York to do the Let It All Hang Out Show, and Silky resumed with Dick. Then Dick was going to direct the Asthma Relief Telethon, and the girls would be on that. At the telethon Hitler-Libra introduced them to his new secretary, Gerry Thompson.

Gerry was a really classy-looking girl, with straight red hair. She knew how to dress, too, Silky noticed at once. And she was pretty, and probably smart. Dick seemed to like her immediately.

The minute Silky saw Dick looking at Gerry she got really sick to her stomach. It was one thing to imagine all the girls he took to his apartment at night when she wasn’t there, but it was another thing to see him in action. She thought she was going to choke. This Gerry was probably the kind of white girl he liked to date, and she was going to be trouble. The worst of it was she was nice, and not a bitch at all. It was obvious that Gerry didn’t dislike him but she wanted to get rid of him because she knew he belonged to Silky. There had been a sort of understanding between the two girls immediately: Silky knew Gerry liked her, and she felt friendly toward Gerry. It wasn’t Gerry’s fault that Dick liked her—she was just the kind of girl he would like—and that made it almost worse. It was as if Silky was powerless to change anything.

But Silky knew one thing: she’d been fighting for her life as long as she could remember, and she wasn’t going to give up now. This Gerry looked soft, like a girl who’d always had things her own way and never had to fight for anything. Silky could teach her a thing or two about fighting. She wasn’t going to let Dick just drift away. She was going to make it her business to really make friends with Gerry, so the girl would feel too guilty to let Dick get anywhere. And she was going to be so sweet and cool around the house and so much a woman in bed that Gerry wouldn’t stand a chance. Dick was her whole life. What would Gerry know about a man who was a woman’s whole life? It was just sickening to think that this pretty, classy-looking girl who’d always had everything could just walk in and take away the one thing that meant everything to her, a girl who’d never had anything at all before. Silky knew one thing: if Gerry thought Dick was going to be just another romance she was going to have to put up a hell of a fight.