As the twenty-fifth of July approached, and I was missing Bobbie more and more, it occurred to me that when she got back it would be nice to give her something to remember me by. Now, about Bobbie’s teeth; I have mentioned the peculiar way she smiled. Bobbie’s two upper front teeth were discolored in contiguous patches; and her odd way of smiling, and her habit of curling her tongue over her upper teeth, were due to that blemish. She was silently, horribly self-conscious about it. My gift, I decided, would be caps for those teeth.
Well, she telephoned me from the bus terminal the minute she arrived, sounding amiable, if tired and rushed. When I asked her to come to the hotel (I wanted to tell her about the teeth, of course), she said hesitantly, “You mean right now? Are you sure you want that? Aren’t you and Peter working?”
“Peter went to Jones Beach.”
“Oh.” Thoughtful pause, buses snorting in the background. “Well, maybe just for a minute, then. I’m all grimy and mussed, but I do want to show you my tan. Roy had this Olympic pool, and Monica and I just lived in it. But I’ve gotten so fat! You won’t recognize me.”
I recognized her. She wore the light gray dress, and as for being fat, the gain of a pound or so had only curved her more lusciously. There she stood in the doorway with that controlled smile. “Hi, honey.”
“Hello, Bobbie. That’s quite a tan.”
We had a cool polite kiss, bodies well apart, in the gloomy foyer. “How is Mr. Goldhandler?” she inquired with real concern. “Will he be all right? I’ve worried a lot about him.”
“It’ll be a long pull. He may not come back to work for months.”
“Oh, my! How awful. Well, let me look at you.” We were strolling into the sunlit living room. “You should be at Jones Beach yourself, dear. You’re pale.”
“I’m glad I’m not at Jones Beach,” I said thickly. I was having trouble breathing. The familiar smell of her perfume, the way her hips and skirt swung with each step, the sway of that black hair around her face, were having the effect on me of a severe asthma attack. I was also very light-headed, as though I had gulped a whole bottle of wine since she walked in. I was altogether in a peculiar state, and could not for the life of me think of a tactful way to bring up the caps for her teeth.
She glanced around. “Place looks just the same. And you’ve leased it again, have you? Well!” She sat down in the peach mink armchair, crossing her legs. “Tell me about Al Jolson. I once tried out for a Jolson show, but didn’t make it. How do you like working for him?”
My response was not much to the point. I sprang on her like a leopard.
The reader will not approve, and this one false move unquestionably turned the current of my years. But let me explain that when Bobbie sat down she carefully lifted up and spread her gray skirt, so as not to crease it—any more than it had been creased in the bus ride from Texas—and in so doing she accidentally flashed her thighs in a clinging rosy half-slip afoam with lace; and as I say, she crossed those long legs of hers, and because of the spread skirt they happened to be in sight well above the knees. Hence my abrupt act, which had little to do with capping her teeth, any way you look at it. She did her best to fight off the leopard, but was overpowered, being fatigued from her journey, and the rest followed.
“Darling,” I said, when the hammering of my heart subsided enough so that I could talk without panting, “have you ever thought of doing something about your teeth?”
“Thought of it?” She blinked up at me in weary astonishment. “Dear, it’s my life. But I can’t afford it.”
“I can.”
Her eyes rounded, and that one mobile eyebrow went up high. “Why, I can’t let you spend that kind of money on me.”
“I’ve got the money, and you’re going to do it.”
She studied my face, then said archly, “A farewell gift?”
“Something like that.”
“Honey, I thought we made our farewells back in June.”
“So did I.”
She had arrived in New York by bus at two in the afternoon. By the Paramount clock it was now a quarter to four. By the time she left April House she had agreed to get the dental work done, and her grateful affection knew no bounds.
***
“Why, that’s what I do,” said Dr. Malman, Harry Goldhandler’s dentist, to whom I had been going for a year or so. He was cleaning my teeth. “I gave Margaret Sullavan a whole new mouth. And I worked on Ethel Merman, and Henry Fonda. Why, it’s my specialty.”
“I hardly know this young lady,” I said. “I met her at a party the other day. She’s just a singer, and she hasn’t got much money.”
Dr. Malman grinned at me, and the grin said, more plainly than plain English, “Don’t worry, sonny, I won’t overcharge you.” His spoken reply was, “Of course. Have her make an appointment.”
She telephoned me some days later. “It’s impossible, honey, he wants seven hundred dollars.”
“Go ahead and get it done. How long will it take?”
“A week and we won’t be able to see each other till he’s finished. I won’t let anybody see me. I had the most awful dream last night. I dreamed he put in these two new teeth, and I saw myself in the mirror and I looked like a gopher. Now can you truly afford it, darling?”
When the job was done, Bobbie insisted on meeting me for dinner at the Golden Horn. “I just can’t face being alone with you, dear. There have to be people around. Anyway, I’ve got to try out these fangs on a nice crusty roll.” Her laugh was very shaky.
I waited quite a while in the restaurant, at our usual table. At last, led by that fawning headwaiter, here she came, walking tall and straight in a lightweight lilac suit I hadn’t seen before, and a pearl choker. Her black hair was up in soft rolls around a face as shy and shining as a bride’s.
“Hi, honey.”
She slowly smiled. It was something of a shock. Those pitifully discolored teeth were gone, and she had a perfect white upper row. There had been a faint winning pathos about that blemish, but she was undeniably prettier.
“Bobbie, it’s marvellous.”
She grasped both my hands. Hers were damp and cold. “Aren’t they too big? They’re not tusks? You don’t hate them?”
“They’re beautiful. Perfect.”
I handed her a gardenia, and the headwaiter brought the champagne I had ordered. Soon the confused Armenian served us another bottle on the house, and then still another, surmising that this was our wedding anniversary, or something. So we were awash in wine, and had a high old time. Convinced at last that I approved—I had to tell her so, over and over—Bobbie confessed that she was wild with joy, and her only concern had been whether I would be pleased.
“Oh, darling, no,” she chortled when I offered to order brandy after dinner. “I’m loopy as it is. Whatever is going to become of us? Have I had my goodbye present? Is this truly the end?” So saying, she put her hand on mine, and turned lustrous eyes at me. Her look penetrated to my bones. She added, with a knowing grin, very tender and beguiling, “Listen, I don’t mean tonight, of course. And, oh hell, I can’t go on calling you that, can I? It’s icky.”
She had just used her original pet name for me, which the reader knows not and will not know. I have left it out of all her talk in this book, though she said it as often as “dear” or “honey.” It was unutterably ridiculous. Peter Quat recently asked me out of nowhere, “What the hell was that idiotic name Bobbie Webb used to call you?” He was the only other person who knew it, except Monica, who is dead. I said I’d forgotten, and the secret will go with me to the grave.
Bobbie went on, “I’ve never liked ‘Davey,’ either. Maybe it’s the way Peter says ‘Davey,’ with that little sneer in it. What does that ‘I.’ in your name stand for, anyway?”
No reason not to tell her, I suppose. “It’s Israel.”
She smiled, her face lighting with surprise. “Israel? That’s nice. That’s you…. Izzy…” She said it slowly, and her hand tightened on mine. “Yes! You’re Izzy, from now on. And isn’t it time, Izzy dear, that we went to April House, and looked at the moon?”
Well, in that context, Peter being away for the weekend, I was not about to start an argument about “Izzy,” though when she uttered the name an old forgotten Aldus Street chill hit me. But she said it in such a caressing way that it did not sound so bad.
***
When we came out of the hotel, weary though we were, Bobbie wanted to walk. The warm starlit night was fading, with streaks of dawn over Fifth Avenue. We strolled up Central Park West arm in arm, moving like one person, bathed in physical gratification, saying nothing for a long time.
“Ah, Izzy,” she burst out, “it was all supposed to be so casual and Noël Cowardish. It isn’t working out that way, is it?”
“It isn’t, Bobbie, no.”
“Then what will happen to us?” She clung to my arm with abrupt fierceness. “I love you so much I can’t eat, I can’t sleep, I can’t think. You must know that! In Texas I dreamed about you, about us, every night. I tore up letters I wrote to you. Monica would find me crying, and I’d lie about it. But she knew. Even Roy knew I was going out of my mind. I was supposed to stay till Labor Day. We were all going to spend two weeks on a yacht out of Galveston. I cut it short. I couldn’t bear being away from you. You make me happy, and nobody and nothing else does.”
I stopped at a bench, and made her sit down beside me. We were under a street lamp, but it was behind her and her face was in shadow. Now and then a taxi went by with hissing tires, otherwise the avenue was quiet. The traffic lights were changing—green, red, green, red—decorating the night but directing no traffic.
Minsker Godol, your move! I was dumbfounded. In a lightning turn, with that declaration, Bobbie was changing the rules, and throwing out the scenario. I spoke the truth, not knowing what else to do.
“Bobbie, I can’t marry you,” I said, forcing the words. “Both of us have known that, right along.”
“Why? Tell me why. Is it because of the religion?”
I didn’t respond.
“Or is it your parents? Why should they object? They’ve lived their lives. It’s our turn now. I’m not a servant girl, I can hold my head up with anybody, and I’d be a good wife.”
“What’s the use, Bobbie? It isn’t going to be, so—”
A hand with a wisp of handkerchief went up and touched the shadowed eyes.
“For God’s sake, my sweet, don’t cry.”
“Oh, I’m all right. I’ll be fine. It’s just that I’ve never been jilted before.”
Zing! Arrow into liver again, sharp and agonizing. Offhand, nothing came to mind from the works of Hemingway, Coward, or Edna Millay to deal with that red-hot pain.
“Call us a cab, Izzy,” Bobbie said, “and don’t look so sad. We’ll both live. I’m just tired and cranky.”
On the telephone next day, her voice was a jubilant chime. “Honey, I made it! Believe it or not, the Rodgers and Hart show. I’m IN!” At the tryout she had met old friends, and compliments had been showered on her about her teeth. “The chorus boys are falling all over me, dear, fair warning,” she laughed. “And listen, I feel so stupid about that dismal scene I put on last night. I was so beat! I’m perfectly happy, everything’s peachy, and would you take me somewhere to eat right now? I’m starved.”
How to keep up with this creature? I telephoned Boyd, who was showing admirable generalship, keeping the troops marching on all fronts of the precarious Goldhandler empire. In a dead voice he agreed to my coming an hour late to a Jolson rehearsal.
“Look, Izzy darling,” she said to me at Lindy’s, turning serious after bubbling about her new job, “let me just say this, and then let’s forget it. You’ve made me happy. You’ve changed my life for the better, and I couldn’t be more content and grateful just as things are. Okay?”
And once more we agreed that our romance had no future, that our beautiful times together were all we wanted or expected of each other, and that our new cutoff date would be the departure of her show for the Boston opening. “It’s perfect timing,” said Bobbie with airy good cheer. “I’ll be away for weeks, I’ll be busy as hell, and I’ll have all these new friends in the show.” We shook hands on it and kissed, and she hurried off to the theatre.
***
Two weeks later she was threatening suicide.
She was unnerved at the possibility of being fired from the show. A few girls were due to be axed and paid off, and we had a ghastly blowup the night before the ax was due to fall. Bobbie had been moody right along during the rehearsals, lustful and hostile, sugar-sweet and crabby, by turns.
“I don’t care if I’m axed! I don’t want to go to Boston. I don’t want to leave you, I can’t bear the thought of it. I’d rather die! Maybe I’ll just quit the show. Don’t you want me to? Don’t you care that I’ll be leaving you? What’s the matter with you, aren’t you human? What are we doing in this bed anyhow?” On and on she raged, then turned ominously still. A stony look froze on her face and her eyes nastily glittered as she dressed in silence.
We had a grim wordless taxi ride to her house. “All right,” she broke forth when the cab stopped. “I’ll show you. You want me out of your life, that’s plain. So be it. You’ll be rid of me much sooner than you think.”
“Oh, come on, Bobbie, what’s that supposed to mean?”
“You’ll find out.” She got out of the cab, her face white and set as a corpse’s, not looking at me at all.
“Good night, Bobbie. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“Goodbye,” she said in a strained far-off voice.
Why do I remember that I was carrying a rolled-up umbrella that night? I was, I know that. I walked to my parents’ flat to get some sleep, a straight five-minute walk from Bobbie’s tenement past the synagogue where Pop was a trustee. I didn’t really think Bobbie was going to defenestrate herself, but it would be false to say I wasn’t shaken up. My Tinker Bell fantasy had exploded in my face. I had on my hands a changeable fury of a woman, and I was a boy in these things, less able to handle her than to face down a charging cow elephant.
“Bobbie Webb? Hold on,” said the janitor’s voice next day, with no more than routine surliness. Bobbie lived on the top floor and the telephone was in the lobby. I heard him buzz her apartment, and after a few seconds, the whine of the elevator. Relief! Had Bobbie splattered herself all over Ninety-fifth Street, the man would probably have mentioned it.
“Hello? Who is this?” Alive, yes, but not perky. “Oh, it’s you.” Short silence. “Hi, honey.”
I asked, “Are you all right?”
“I didn’t get much sleep.”
“Neither did I. Let me take you to lunch.”
“Uh-uh. Me for a long cold shower, dear, and straight to the theatre.”
“Dinner, then.”
“Izzy, I’m coming home right after rehearsal and falling into bed. I look awful. If I don’t have one good night’s sleep I’ll get the ax. I’ll call you, dear.”
Okay, I thought. Bobbie’s move.
But after a week of silence I decided it was preposterous to prolong this nonsense, and I called Mrs. Webb. Bobbie was fine, said the mother, but very busy. Oh, yes, she was still in the show, getting ready to go to Boston. Mrs. Webb sounded odd; not cold to me, but watching her words.
“Hi, honey, Mother said you called.” Bobbie telephoned at midnight, sounding blithe as a robin. “Oh, my gosh, has it really been a week? How awful of me.” She gave a guilty little laugh. “Just a second, dear… Eddie, will you turn down that radio? I’m on the telephone.”
“Who’s Eddie?” I inquired. “Where are you?”
“He’s in the show, he’s the lead baritone in the chorus. I’m in his apartment. Honey, I’ve been picked to understudy Doris Gray! Eddie’s a voice coach. He coached Monica for years, and he’s coaching me for nothing. We’re working right now on my first-act solo.”
Rumbling baritone voice in the background: “Hey, Violet! Want it straight up, or on the rocks?”