We had barely begun the second act of the Frolic when the doors flew open and about twenty policemen burst onto the scene, followed by a handful of men in suits who barked instructions.
“Everyone freeze!” one of them yelled.
The orchestra stopped abruptly, and some girls dashed offstage to grab their clothes while the rest of us onstage froze. We’d heard of raids where men and women were arrested by federal agents—I’d seen them photographed in the paper, publicly shamed for dancing or mingling in an alcohol-serving establishment. The last thing I needed, after my disastrous meeting with my mother, was my picture in the paper in handcuffs, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the vulgarity of it all. One minute there was music and dancing, appreciation and harmless enjoyment, many guests spending their hard-earned money on a late dinner, and the next people were running and cowering and scared. I was scared, too, terrified, actually, with no idea what would happen. What if we got hauled away? Where would we be taken, how long would we be kept there, who would I have to call to get released?
The irony of it was that Ziegfeld hadn’t wanted to sell alcohol in the first place. He would have been quite happy to serve the best food alongside the most desirable dancers and call it a night. Many of his elite regulars, however, asked him to store and serve their private wine collection behind the bar—which technically didn’t violate the rules. And the rest of the guests, well, they insisted that hooch and watching the show went hand in hand, and if they couldn’t have both, they threatened to take their business elsewhere. So reluctantly Ziegfeld appeased them, getting his hands on bottles of champagne for a pretty price. At the first sight of agents, the rumor was that the barkeeps knew to pull a hidden lever that sent an entire row of champagne bottles into a crate in the wall of the bar.
“I’m not selling this!” Ziegfeld shouted at the agents, clearly distraught as they stormed in, not caring to differentiate between what he was selling and what he was storing and serving.
I’d never been in a raid before, but I always thought the goal was to arrest as many patrons as possible for purchasing liquor and fine the owners so much that they’d be forced to shut down or pay off the police. But this raid seemed different. They weren’t making arrests. They weren’t even harassing Ziegfeld. Instead they headed straight for the bar.
“There’s nothing here!” we could hear Ziegfeld yelling at them. “These are private wine collections, collections that they already had in their homes. These are not for sale, I assure you!” But the agents didn’t care, and it was strange to see the all-powerful Mr. Ziegfeld ignored. One agent picked up bottles of vintage red wine, pulled out the cork with his teeth and took a swig. Then they formed an assembly line of sorts, agents behind the bar picking up bottles, some worth as much as my rent, I’d guess, and throwing them over the bar to another agent, who threw them across the room to another, who dumped it all into a large open-topped barrel. Some bottles just clanked in, but others shattered. Wine and bourbon spilled out onto the carpet. Some agents missed—intentionally, it seemed—shattering glass and spilling hooch all over the beautiful space. It was dreadful. Patrons ran for the doors and the agents didn’t try to stop them; they were intent on emptying out Ziegfeld’s entire stock of alcohol.
When they left, we all gathered out on the red and sticky dance floor. I was so relieved that I hadn’t been arrested but devastated at the sight of it all. Ziegfeld surveyed the damage.
“It’s horrible, Mr. Ziegfeld,” one of the girls called out, starting to sob. “It’s awful what they’ve done to this place, they have no right.”
He shook his head and took it all in. “This doesn’t matter,” he said. “This can all get cleaned up. This dance floor will be mopped, the linens will be washed, and the tables and chairs put back in their place. All evidence of this raid will be gone after the cleaning crew comes in and does its job, so don’t worry about that. What matters is that our patrons come to us for an exclusive, luxurious good time. They trust that my staff will treat them with the utmost respect, they will eat the finest food, and they will be treated with dignity. My patrons don’t deserve this. If we cannot operate without this kind of disrespectful intrusion, sending our moneyed clientele out into the streets like criminals, then I don’t even know if we should go on.” He shook his head, and some of the girls gasped. I tried to remain stoic, though inside I knew I was in hot water. I might not be in the Follies anymore, but with Howie’s help I’d become one of the stars of the Frolic. I couldn’t fathom him closing it down. I’d have nothing.
“It’s been a bad night, Flo,” Howie said, stepping in and taking him by the arm. “Let’s not jump to any rash decisions tonight. We can beat this ridiculous Volstead Act, we can prove that those wine bottles belonged to patrons fair and square, and that they weren’t being sold. They didn’t see the champagne—it’s all in the back as planned.” I imagined Howie was also starting to worry and working hard to set Ziegfeld on the right track. “You make money with tickets and dinner. If you can’t sell hooch, people will still come.”
“Sure they will,” one of the girls agreed.
“We almost got taken off to jail,” Lara wailed. We turned and gave her a look—we were trying to keep our jobs here, not make things worse.
“No one’s going to jail,” Ziegfeld said. “I’m going to get all this cleaned up, and I’m going to take some time to think things through,” he added at last. “Ladies,” he said, turning to us and smiling, trying to act as if he weren’t shaken from the experience, “take the next week off, get some rest, let’s meet back here in a week, and I’ll have a plan.”
With that he left, leaving a group of nervous young women behind him, wondering if they’d get paid, wondering how they’d make their rent, worrying about their future.
“He just got spooked,” I told Archie when I met him at the Plaza that evening. We lay back on his bed after he’d just called down for oysters to be delivered. I didn’t feel like going out after all that, not yet, anyway. “He’s been raided before and the show has gone on. This shouldn’t be any different,” I said. But part of me was scared that the agents had gone too far this time, and he was getting tired of it.
“Can he still make a profit, though?” Archie asked, turning his head toward mine. “Without the alcohol sales? I’m not so sure he can. Between the costumes and the stage design, he seems to pay out a lot to make that place as luxurious and swanky as possible.”
“I sure hope so,” I said. “I don’t know what I’d do without that show, it’s everything to me.”
“Everything?” Archie asked.
“Well, not everything,” I said, reaching over and running my fingers through his hair. “But it makes me very happy to be on that stage, you know that.”
“I sure do,” he said. “But I think there are other things that could make you happy too.”
“Oh, really?”
Archie leaned in and kissed me. His soft lips on mine, his smooth, clean-shaven cheeks, the hint of his cologne, it made me forget everything else for a moment. He wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me toward him.
“You make me happy,” I said.
He began to unbutton my blouse, but there was a knock at the door.
“The oysters,” I said, giggling.
“Don’t go anywhere,” he said, straightening himself up and tucking in his shirt. “Stay right where you are.”
I lay on the bed and listened as he opened the door. “Right here will be fine, thank you,” Archie said. “Oh, and we’ll be needing two glasses sent up.”
“I see,” the waiter said. “I’ll send them right away.”
When Archie returned with a silver cart, a tower of oysters and an ice bucket, I told him about the way the staff had treated me in the Palm Court with my mother.
“They suggested that I was some kind of prostitute, staying in your suite while you were away,” I said. “Honestly, they were terribly rude, in front of my mother, too.”
“That’s terrible! We can’t have your reputation tarnished like that. I thought since I was away on business they would understand you were simply my guest, but I think I’ve been too greedy, wanting to spend so much time with you. Maybe I should get you a suite of your own.”
“No, I have my own apartment. I suppose I should stay there once in a while.”
“But darling,” he added as he opened his closet and took out a bottle of champagne from his stash and placed it on ice, “it’s unheard of for a woman to smoke at the Plaza.”
“How was I supposed to know? Where do you get that from, anyway?” I asked, nodding toward the bottle.
“From Europe via Canada via a guy named Eddie.”
“Aren’t you going to open it?”
“Not until it’s cold.”
“Just put some ice chips in mine, it will be fine.”
He shook his head. “That would be a sin, to put ice chips in Moët and Chandon. Do you know how hard it is to get your hands on this?”
I grabbed it from his hands, popped the cork to the ceiling and took a sip. “It’s not that difficult,” I said with a grin.
Archie threw up his arms in defeat, collapsed onto the bed next to me and took a swig from the bottle.
“Anyway, why is it unheard of for a woman to smoke here?”
“It just is, it’s the Plaza. I’m sorry I didn’t warn you. And your poor mother.”
“Well, that wasn’t the only thing that disappointed my mother.”
“Go on.”
“The waiter let on that I’d been staying here, with you, and she was horrified.”
“Oh, Olive. Would it help if you introduced me, to show them that I’m a respectable gentleman?” he asked, continuing to unbutton my blouse.
“Respectable?”
“As respectable as they come,” he said, kissing my neck.
“The best thing we can do right now is lay low. I certainly don’t want her to tell my father—he’ll disown me for good if he knows I’ve been staying here with you as an unwed woman.”
“Agreed. I haven’t even met him yet, I certainly don’t want him to have a bad opinion of me.” He drank from the bottle. “I have an idea,” he said suddenly. “Let’s get away from all of this. Let’s go upstate to the Adirondacks this week. I have some business to take care of up there, and nothing would make me happier than to have you join me. We can stay at the Pines again.” He looked at me to gauge my interest. “Come on, it’s beautiful at this time of year. With all that hoopla at the club tonight, I think getting out of the city and spending a few days in the country is probably exactly what you need.”
“It sounds lovely, but I have to be back at the theater in a week, that sounds like a quick turnaround.”
“We can leave tomorrow. I just have something I need to take care of in the morning, then we’ll take my train car, no waiting around. I’ll have it connected to the most direct trains and we’ll get there in less than twenty-four hours. I’ll make sure you enjoy the journey as much as the destination.”
He wasn’t kidding. We boarded the train early and were greeted by the same butler I’d met the first time I saw his railcar.
We sat on the two-seater facing the windows.
“I do love a good adventure,” I said, smiling.
“And I love your spontaneity,” Archie said. “I could tell from the minute you flew off that stage and landed in my arms that you had a wild streak in you.” He ran his fingers across my wrist, and just one touch sent a shiver up my arm. I felt like a teenager around him.
“I’ve always been thrilled by the feeling of not knowing what comes next,” I said. “I’ve craved that feeling of excitement since I was a child, but growing up my family didn’t share that sentiment.” I leaned back on the plush down-filled cushions. “They wanted to know what their immediate future held, they were a family of planners and organizers, with routines and schedules and set dinnertimes. I’ve always been the outsider in that regard. I’m telling you, even what we ate for dinner was planned out. On Mondays, we had baked ham with carrots and peas. Tuesdays, lamb chops and mashed potatoes. Wednesdays, my father met friends at the club, so we had leftover baked ham sandwiches and apple jelly. Thursday was broiled veal cutlets and fried tomatoes.”
“That would drive me crazy,” Archie said.
“It was the same thing week after week. If there was a change to be made, and that was a rare occurrence, my mother wrote it on the blackboard in the kitchen. Every day was so predictable.”
I thought back to the conversation I’d had with my mother at the kitchen table before I moved out of their house in Flatbush, her hint at disdain for her domesticated life. I’d always been so resentful of those mundane dinners, I’d never considered for a moment that she might feel the same way.
“Maybe that’s why you grew up to be such a daring thing,” he said. “You rebelled against the routine.”
“Probably.”
Early that evening after lounging all day, watching out the window as the countryside flew past us, enjoying card games, Archie told me it was time to dress for dinner and presented me with a gift box wrapped in a large silver bow.
“May I?” he asked before he untied the bow, took off the lid and tilted the box toward me.
“Wow,” I said, picking up an emerald-green dress with three tiers of fringe that swished gently with the motion of the train. The appliqué on the bodice was treelike, with gold and green leaves, and it felt reminiscent of the lush greenery we’d been passing through all afternoon. “It’s stunning, thank you.”
By seven P.M. I was freshened up and dressed for the evening ahead. Outside, day was turning into night and the sky was a rich shade of blue. The lounge had been transformed and was set up as an elegant private dining salon, with the sofa moved to the end of the room and a romantic table for two in the center. Archie stood by the window, handsome in a black tuxedo. He turned and looked at me.
“A vision,” he said. “That’s always my favorite part—seeing you walk into a room. You look beautiful.”
“I feel beautiful, thank you,” I said, giving a little twirl, letting the fringe of the dress sway from side to side.
Miniature hors d’oeuvres were brought out to us two at a time—stuffed mushrooms, salmon mousse and toasted bread, olives and even oysters.
Archie took my hand and walked me over to the gramophone. We danced to Bessie Smith’s “Back-Water Blues,” and I felt as though I could stay on that train with him forever. Suddenly the city and stage seemed so far away.
Once we sat down, the butler came out of the kitchen with a tray perched on his shoulder with two beautifully molded individual Jell-O salads—each one about six inches tall. “Look how they jiggle.” I laughed, shimmying in unison with them.
“This is quite a spread for a train ride,” I said. “How is all of this even possible?”
“Anything is possible if you want it badly enough—you know that.”
He delivered the masterpieces to us, slices of tomato, cucumber, celery and green pepper, captured midrotation and suspended in clear yellow gelatin. It danced in front of me with the motion of the train, and it almost seemed a shame to cut into it.
“So, Olive, I’ve been thinking about the Pines Camp.”
“Oh, me too—it’s such a magical place. I never dreamed I’d like it so much when Ziegfeld first told me about it.”
“What if I bought it for you as an engagement present?”
“What?” I laughed, but my stomach flipped with the thrill of his words. “What do you mean? We’re not even engaged.”
“Well, that’s something I’ve been wanting to talk to you about.” He stood from the table and came around to where I was sitting. Everything else seemed to happen in slow motion. He reached inside his jacket pocket and pulled out a small seafoam-green box with a white bow, then took a step back and was down on one knee in front of me. I couldn’t believe what was happening.
“Archie,” I said in a whisper, suddenly overcome with emotion. “What are you doing?”
“Olive May McCormick Shine,” he said, taking my left hand in his and kissing it. “I love everything about you, and I don’t want to spend another minute of my life without you by my side. Would you do me the great honor of being my wife?”
I put my hand over my mouth, stunned. I couldn’t believe what was unfolding. I couldn’t speak.
“Olive, my darling, will you marry me?”
“Yes.” I stood and pulled him to his feet. “Yes, Archie, nothing would make me happier.” I kissed him.
“Well, then let me place this on your finger before you change your mind,” he said. He opened the box and took out a huge emerald-cut diamond ring with two baguette diamonds on either side.
“Oh my,” I said, breathless, stunned all over again.
He slipped the ring onto my finger and kissed my hand. “This, my love, this is where it all begins.”