December 1956
I t was cold and damp when I made my way down the sidewalk toward the Playhouse Theater. The sidewalk was wet. The rain had washed away some of the snow, but patches still lingered in clumps along the curb and gutter. It was only six in the evening, but already dark. I had to hurry so I could meet the girls at Bickford’s for a pre-show bite. As I drew closer to the theater, I could see the backstage door, open; a bright light shone from it—like hope. I hoped Ron Denby would be sitting there, as he often was. That would make it easy.
A few people walked casually by the stage door unaware of who might be inside there. I leaned against the door and peered inside. “Eddie! Eddie,” I called to the young chorus boy I’d met when Juliana was doing Heaven is to Your Left. He was still in rehearsal clothes, black tights and a white tee shirt.
“Hey, Al!” he said. “It’s been a long time. Where ya been?”
“Around. That’s terrific you got a job in Baker . The critics are expecting great things.”
“Yeah, and it’s been a real gas. Well, you know what it’s like to work with Juliana. She’s always fun.”
“She arrive yet?”
“Nah, not yet. Should be here soon.”
“Is Ron around?”
“Yeah, he’s back there somewhere.” He pointed toward the back. “Ya want me to get him for ya?”
“Would ya mind?”
“Not a bit. Come in. Sit tight. I’ll be right back. He’s not far.”
Eddie dashed off while I stepped inside. I stood near the Stage Manager’s desk. Ron would help me out. He’d been the stage manager for Heaven . I don’t know if he suspected that Juliana and I were…Oh, of course he did. What if she suddenly appeared? Right now. What if she just came around that corner right there. Now? Just the thought sent Christmas bursting into my chest. And what if she was on Richard’s arm? Christmas just melted into mud. I drew my mink closer around me to block out the damp cold while I waited.
“Hey, Al, how are ya?” Ron said with a big smile. He looked muscular in his gray tee shirt and dark suit pants. This was his usual Stage Manager attire. Of course, before he left the backstage to enter the civilization of non-theater folk, he’d don a tie shirt even if he didn’t include the tie. “Eddie said you were here. Miss having you at rehearsals.”
“Yeah, thanks, uh, I can’t stay. I’ve got an envelope. If you…” I held it out for him, and he took it, looking at the face of it.
“Sure.” He slipped it into his side pocket. “As soon as she gets here, I’ll give it to her.”
“Thanks.”
I hurried away and headed for the Automat, at Times Square, to wait, to hope. I took a dollar from my purse and gave it to the cashier sitting in the center. I retrieved my nickels and dropped most of them in my purse. I went to the bank of vending machines that was stacked one on top of the other and found the cup of tea. I found it and put in my nickel, turned the knob and the glass door clicked open. I lifted the door and retrieved my Bakelite mug filled with hot tea. I chose a square table in the back, away from other patrons, although there were only a very few occupying the other tables. My two hands gripped the mug and brought it to my lips. I took a sip of the warm tea and watched the door. Waiting. She would come through there. If she came. A whirlwind of anxiety ran through me. I glanced at my watch as the second hand moves to tick off the next second. Then it ticks off another second and another and another as I watch it and watch the door. Be sure to memorize the sound of her voice, I tell myself. The sound of her speaking voice. The other I can get from RCA Victor. The most we’ll have is a few minutes and then our time will be gone. We’ll have to run back to our separate lives. I must memorize whatever time we have. My watch clicks off another second. From the window I see people in winter coats scurry along the sidewalk. The day is gray. The seconds click and click and then—the minute hand arrives at 7:05.
She’s not coming. I have to go and meet the girls. I’m the one with the tickets. She’d never come this late before a curtain. A weight sits at the bottom of my stomach. I bring my half-filled cup to the return rack. I move slow. Watching the door. There’s time for her to arrive. There is, there is. I stand there, not moving, watching the door. The cashier turns and smiles at me. “Have a nice evening.”
“Yes. Thank you,” I say. “You, too.” I dash out the door. Look to see if she’s coming down the block or up. No. She’s not. A boy and a girl, seventeen, eighteen, pass me to enter The Automat. They’re giggling and teasing; they kiss before they go in. I have to rush and meet the girls.
* * *
“Now, who’d you say this star was?” Deb asked as we walked down 48th Street toward The Playhouse Theater shortly before the show. Freddie-Faye grabbed Deb’s arm to stop herself from falling on her face while she struggled to balance in high heels.
“It’s Juliana!” Freddie-Faye said. “She was in that hit show, Heaven is to Your Left , a year ago. She’s only the greatest living singer/actress on Broadway, probably the best in the whole world and Al knows her. Personally! Don’t you, Al?”
“Well—only a little. I know her a little. From my work in the clubs. Nothing to brag about. Don’t go telling people.”
A few hours ago, before I met with Ron, we’d been in Freddie-Faye’s apartment looking at the dresses she had hanging in her closet from the days of her other life. I figured getting this crew into formal gowns would be impossible even though I had to wear one. My professional position and all that. I wished I could wear a tuxedo. That’s what Juliana liked me in best and if I actually got to see her—alone… I’d never be allowed into the theater in a tuxedo. A nice dress was the bare minimum on opening night. I settled on my green gown, a little low-cut. I even had my hair done up. Six months. It’d been six months since I saw her.
I hoped we’d find something in Freddie-Faye’s closet for each of them to wear, but as I pushed one dress after another outta the way, it looked like Freddie-Faye didn’t have much they could use, a few odd pieces here and there, but not enough to outfit three theater-going ladies.
Deb announced, “I have a few formal gowns you girls can borrow.”
“You do?” I sounded as shocked as I felt. She stood there in the middle of Freddie-Faye’s room in a pair of billowy red Bermuda shorts, her chunky legs and lumpy knees hanging free in the middle of the winter. Her man’s shirt tucked half in half out and then there was that hair…
“You know, Deb,” I said, “You kinda look like that boy—the one in the TV commercial—the boy who lives in a shoe. What’s his name?” I looked to Freddie-Faye.
“Yeah! You do,” Freddie-Faye agreed.
“Who?” Deb asked.
“You know,” I said. “He wears that big flat hat and short pants and …”
“Buster Brown!” Freddie-Faye shouted. “That’s who. Buster Brown. You look just like him.”
“I do not,” Deb protested.
“Yes,” Freddie-Faye laughed. “The boy who lived in a shoe. That’s you.” She laughed more. “Al’s right. It’s your hair.”
“Stop laughing.” She touched the cut-off edges of what I guessed was s’posed to be her bangs, holding back tears “What’s wrong with my hair?”
“It looks chopped up,” Freddie-Faye said.
“There’s nothing wrong with your hair,” I said, putting an arm around her, avoiding disaster. “I didn’t mean anything. I’m sorry. I was thinking about shoes. Tell us about your gowns.”
Her smile came back. “They’re nice ones. My favorite is the blue. I have shoes and a purse to go with it, too.”
“And I could lend you my fox stole.” I told her.
“Really? Her eyes got big. Does it have a real fox’s head?”
“Yes, it does.”
“With teeth?”
“Yup. Teeth.”
“I love those kinds. And I have another gown that’s too big for me. I bet it’d fit you, Freddie-Faye.”
“Me, in a gown? You’re kidding. I’d look like a cow.” She lit a match off the bottom of her shoe and held it to the unfiltered camel that dangled from her lips. “What if one of my ladies saw me?”
“That’s not gonna happen.” Janet perked up, “none of your ‘ladies’ are gonna be at the theater.”
“How do you know?”
Janet crossed her arms over her chest and grinned, “I know, Freddie-Faye. None of them are gonna be there.
“Okay,” Freddie-Faye said, “You’re probably right. I’ll wear one of yer gowns if it’s for Juliana.”
Freddie-Faye and I helped Deb carry the gowns, heels, hats, purses, slips from her apartment up to Freddie-Faye’s on the third floor of the same building. Freddie-Faye had a choice between the green gown and the yellow. She chose the green and I leant her my mink jacket. She wobbled on the heels, and resembled a female impersonator, but I didn’t think anyone, but me noticed that. Still why did Deb have all those gowns and matching heels purses and hats? I’d never seen her dress so coordinated or that fancy. When we asked, she just said, “Oh, because.”
We stepped under the theater’s canopy where it said in large letters, PLAYHOUSE. “If Juliana invited ya to her show, you gotta know her pretty good,” Freddie-Faye said. “Why didn’t ya tell me that first night when ya saw her picture on my end table?”
“’Cause uh… I don’t know her that well. I was invited to this show by her PR people ‘cause I’m in the business; they want me to tell customers that come to The Mt. Olympus how good the opera is so that our customers buy tickets for the show. It’s just PR.”
I hadn’t told them yet about the after-show reception at Sardis. I wasn’t sure if I was going. I didn’t know how I felt about seeing Juliana in such a formal setting, especially after the meeting we just didn’t have. Richard would be there. We moved closer to the entrance as we waited in line to get into the theater.
“But you can introduce me to her.” Freddie-Faye said. “You can, can’t you? Oh, please say you can.” Her two hands were clasped together in prayer.
“Well, uh, ya see, uh…”
Janet came from behind, pushing Freddie-Faye outta her way so she could stand next to me. It hadn’t been so easy getting Janet outta that army jacket and into a gown, but Freddie-Faye and I managed to convince her that that was the only way she could come with us. She looked pretty good in her lavender gown with the flared skirt. A whole new Janet. It gave her some color. Deb didn’t look bad either in her blue gown and fox stole, even if the gown was a little too long for her legs and the stole was a too big for her shoulders; she carried herself in the clothes rather well like she’d had practice. Freddie-Faye, on the other hand, I thought, looked ridiculous in the green gown and the mink jacket I loaned her. I gathered that some girls just looked better in a pair of dungarees and a shirt. I figured Freddie-Faye was one of those girls; I suspected I might be one of them too.
“Freddie-Faye is nuts for Juliana,” Janet laughed. “She spent all her money on seeing Juliana in that Broadway show, uh, Heaven something.”
“Heaven is to Your Left,” I said.
“Yeah, that one. Every cent she had she spent on that show.”
“I did not.”
“Did to.”
“Well, not all of it.”
“Most. And she’s got that picture of Juliana right next to her bed and she…” Janet pulled on my shoulders and whispered in my ear, “masturbates to that picture.”
I pulled quickly away. “Uh, Janet, that’s not…”
Janet laughed so loud other patrons waiting in line turned to stare.
“What’d you say to Al about me, huh?” Freddie-Faye asked, moving toward Janet, her hands curled into fists like she was about to punch her in the nose. “What’d you say?”
“Nothin’.” Janet said with a grin.
“What’d she say, Al?”
“Nothing important. Over here.” The line was moving into the lobby. We passed a large picture of Juliana singing with a darkly handsome young man. The picture was behind glass and the line didn’t stop long enough for me to get a really good look at it.”
“This is so exciting.” Deb said. “I’ve never seen a Broadway show before.”
We all turned to stare at her.
“Never?” Freddie-Faye and I said at the same time.
“Why?” I asked. “Haven’t you been a little bit curious? You live right in New York City. If it’s a matter of cost, there’s always the balcony.”
“I can afford it!” Deb shouted. “What do you think I am? Some poor nobody.”
“I didn’t mean that. I was just surprised you never…”
“I was kidding. I’ve seen lots of Broadway shows!”
“What show did you see last year?” Freddie-Faye challenged.
“Uh, well, I can’t think now, but it’ll come back to me.”
“You’re lying,” Freddie-Faye shot back at her. “I can see it by how your face looks.”
“How does my face look?” She covered her face with her hands. “It looks like always. You can’t see…”
“Admit it!” Freddie-Faye said. “You’ve never been to a Broadway show.”
“That’s not true. It’s not. It’s not, Al.” She looked up at me as if I held some hope for her, but I thought she was lying too. What I couldn’t figure out was why . Why would a person first lie about never seeing a Broadway show and then lie about seeing a Broadway show? Sure, it was surprising, since she lived right in New York City, but it wasn’t like having some deep dark secret. There were lots of people who didn’t go to Broadway and didn’t feel like they had to lie about it, so why…? It didn’t make a whole lot of sense.
“I’m not lying!” She was shaking; her face got puffy like she was about to cry. Over not having been to a Broadway show before? I stepped in front of Freddie-Faye before she could lunge at Deb and choke the truth out of her.
“Come on, Freddie-Faye, we’re here to have a good time. Whether Deb has been to a Broadway show before or not doesn’t matter.”
“I have been! I have! I just forgot.” Deb cried out like she was pleading for her life.
“She’s lyin’, and I don’t like liars,” Freddie-Faye said. “Why are you lyin’?”
“Come on, Janet. You and I are going in,” I said. “Let them fight by themselves. I got the tickets!” I took hold of Janet’s arm and walked her toward the ticket taker.
“No, wait,” Freddie-Faye yelled, “we’re coming.”
The two of them came up behind Janet and me just as we were handing over our tickets. I quickly gave Freddie-Faye and Deb their tickets and we moved inside following the ushers.
The Playhouse Theatre had two balconies besides the large orchestra section. I was relieved that at least my reputation was big enough to earn me a seat in the orchestra, back orchestra, but still orchestra, not one of those no man land balconies. Imagine if I had been Juliana’s husband, instead of her hidden away gay-girl lover? I would’ve been given my choice of any seat in the house. I would’ve taken row C center. But under the circumstances Orchestra, Row P, Left wasn’t bad. I wondered where Richard was sitting and if Juliana was still keeping him outta her dressing room before the show. Who helped her now before the curtain went up? Was she still so anxious before opening? Surely, Richard had gotten better at making her feel secure. Or had he?
We had time before the curtain and some patrons were milling about in the aisles to see and be seen. Freddie-Faye had brought her brother’s birdwatching glasses and was scanning the orchestra to see if she could spot someone famous seated there.
“Ooh,” she gasped, “I think that’s Olivia de Havilland down there. Look, Al, look for me. I want to be sure.”
“Please,” I whispered. “Gawking so openly at the audience isn’t done, Freddie-Faye. It makes you look like a tourist.”
“Ooh, does it?” She reluctantly slipped the binoculars back into her purse. “I wouldn’t want to look like one of them .”
“Well, I don’t care,” Deb said, reaching into Freddie-Faye’s purse and pulling out the glasses. She held them to her eyes. “Oh, Freddie-Faye! Isn’t that, that…? It is!
“Who?” Freddie-Faye asked, taking back the glasses.
“Garbo,” Deb whispered.
“Excuse me,” A tall older gentleman said, as he slipped between Freddie-Faye and me heading to the seats that were closer to the stage. He stopped and looked back. We stared at each other a moment. “Hello,” we said at the same time. “Alice uh, uh Huffman, right?”
“Yes.” The slight gray at his temples and at the hair line of his forehead made him look even more distinguished than when I met him on the ship.
“Of course!” He exclaimed, coming closer, “I saw Juliana on Broadway last season and was totally entranced. I’m certainly looking forward to this opera. Not only musical comedy, but opera, too? My goodness, what a talent. I’m so impressed.”
“Well, she is impressive.” I said.
“Yes, she is that,” he said in his distinctive accent.
Freddie-Faye and Deb banged against my back, whispering, “What’s he saying? Introduce us.”
“Oh, Mr. Grant, these are my friends, Freddie-Faye Yablonski, Deb Skylar and…” I looked around and found Janet crouching down behind me as if trying not to be seen.
Freddie-Faye and Deb stared at him like bewitched statues, their mouths hanging unpleasantly open.
“Hello,” he nodded at them. “My pleasure. Nice running into you, Miss Huffman. Enjoy the show.” He continued his walk down the aisle.
“Oh, my gosh,” Deb said, her hand to her chest, “He spoke to me.”
“To me too!” Freddie-Faye challenged.
I wanted to hurry them outta the aisle before they caused an accident. “I think we’ve lost our ushers in the chaos,” I told them, “but I should be able to get us there.” They were staring at me.
“You know him?” Freddie-Faye asked, breathlessly. “You actually know him?”
“Just an acquaintance.”
“Wasn’t, wasn’t that, that…?” Deb stammered.
“Of course, it was,” Freddie said.
“Let’s find our seats.” I said leading our little group to the end of row P.
“You talked to him,” Freddie-Faye said. “Like a real person.”
“What’d you expect her to do,” Janet said, from the behind all of us. “Spit in his eye?”
“He knew your name,” Freddie-Faye said. “He had your name in his mouth and you didn’t faint.”
I led them down the row P seats pushing past the knees of patrons who had already arrived. “Here we are,” I announced. The orchestra was tuning up.
They all hurried to sit around me asking questions that I had no answer for like: ‘How do you know him? Where’d you meet him.” I was relieved he didn’t mention meeting me on the USS United States. “Oh, I don’t know him, really,” I said. “Just through my business. He stopped to say hello, to be polite. Business.”
“Hey, Al,” a familiar voice called from behind me. I turned around to the row of seats in back of us. “Apple!” It was Apple, the assistant stage manager from Heaven is to Your Left . “No backstage today?” I asked.
“No. I didn’t get hired for this show, but I tried,” Apple said. “I really wanted to work with Juliana again. And I thought I’d see you, too.”
My heartbeat sped up and I started to sweat. Oh, god don’t say anything about me being Juliana’s manager. “You haven’t introduced me,” I said, turning toward the young blonde woman who stood at his side.
“Oh, yeah. Sorry. How rude. This is Ethel Goldman, my fiancée. And honey, this is Alice Huffman. I know her from Heaven…”
“Not exactly from such a lofty place,” I chuckled, wanting to end this before he gave more details about my ‘credentials.’
Apple and Ethel laughed.
“And these are my friends Freddie-Faye Yablonsky, Deb Skylar and Janet Yablonsky is down there.”
“How do you do?” the couple said, taking their seats.
I could breathe again once we turned back around to sit in our Row P seats.
The curtain ruffled and the first few notes of the overture played. The audience settled down. Anticipation rose in my stomach as the orchestra began. My excitement was mixed with terror. I would soon hear that voice, the voice that had once, not so very long ago, sung right to me. With each brass note from the orchestra and each deep percussion roll my terrified excited desire rose within me. My breath caught in my throat. I must not miss one moment of this; not one sound; I must pull it all inside me, tuck it deep within and keep it there, possess it, become one with it; until it is completely mine.
The orchestra played faster now, percussion, brass, strings, percussion, brass, brass—A woodwind! Percussion, percussion, brass, brass, brass…
It climbed to top speed and came crashing down, skidded to a stop and then—Silence: Long and deep as the curtain crept open. Soon. It’d be soon. A minute. A second. She’d be standing there soon. There had been barely any time before, hardly a moment to really know her.
The set appeared outta a cloud. We were inside a shop. A sign on top lit in red neon announced: THE MACDOUGAL STREET BAKERY
Decorated cakes, all colors, two layers, three layers, four, on shelves scattered about the stage. On other shelves sugary buns, blueberry tarts, apple turnovers. Customers sitting at round tables drinking coffee, a baker dressed in white, a smudge of powder on his nose, presses raw dough into a silver tin and begins to sing in a rich baritone. A chorus of customers harmonize with him. He stops, turns, looks. The chorus is mute. She walks in—Juliana or Rosetta, her character name.
My heart. The theater fills with her voice. Janet grips my arm. I look to see she has crawled over the others to sit by me. She too must feel it. She’s right there. Juliana is there. Right in front of me. As tiny as a speck, as distant as a star, as huge as the whole auditorium. Her voice fills every space and I feel her. I feel her in me and around me. I can almost hold out my hand and touch… No. She’s galaxies away and I can only watch from my faraway universe.
The opera might be called The Baker of MacDougal Street , but this show belongs to Juliana. She is its star.
According to the story line, and gratefully the libretto was in English, Rosetta and the baker had had one heated night in the bakery. And boy, was that one hot scene, hotter than the usual opera scenes. I wanted to run up on stage and…well, you know. After that the baker falls in love with Rosetta despite his being married to this sweet, chubby woman who is completely devoted to him. I felt sad for the little woman.
At first, when the baker starts following Rosetta around, giving her sweets from his bakery, trying to lure her back, Rosetta is mean to him, shooing him away, calling him an ugly little man, laughing at him. She made me mad until I thought the baker looked a lot like Richard and deserved it.
Later, we find out Rosetta has a jealous, violent boyfriend, named Frankie. He wears leather jackets and rides motor cycles and always has a knife ready to kill anyone who even looks at Rosetta. After a while we can see that Rosetta is protecting the baker from Frankie and she doesn’t really want to be mean to him. There’s a whole song about her real feelings for the baker that’s called, “The Little Baker and the Big, Big Heart.” It’s not as corny as the title sounds.
One day Frankie finds out that Rosetta and the baker had a fling and so he comes looking for the baker. He storms into the shop ready to kill the baker, while the baker is cutting up apples with his knife. Frankie goes for the baker. The baker raises his own knife. Frankie laughs and plays with the Little Baker. Rosetta dashes in begging in song, that Frankie leave the man alone. Laughing, he knocks the baker’s knife from his hand and is about to lunge at him when Rosetta gets in between them and by accident Frankie stabs her. Scared, Frankie runs out and Rosetta dies in the baker’s arms, singing about how she never knew a man as wonderful as him. The death scene is long with demands for a dark vocal timbre; it gave Juliana plenty of opportunity to show off her spinto soprano range. I certainly chose the perfect opera for her voice. No wonder she was cast so easily. Hers was a rare voice and the part of Rosetta would’ve been ruined if anyone, but Juliana had sung it.
Unlike traditional opera where the principals take a curtain call after each act, the cast of this Broadway opera only took their bows at the end of the show as is done in theater. When Juliana came out walking in front of the closed curtain, as they do in opera, the audience jumped to its feet. She swept along the apron of the stage in her long dress with a natural elegance that was breath-taking. My heart was off and running again, but I was sure I wasn’t the only one feeling that way. Tears flowed down my face to match the joy and pain in my stomach, but I didn’t stand out. Janet and Freddie-Faye were crying too. It was hard not to; the show had been so moving and Juliana had changed the whole place into a heavenly bakery. The standing ovation went on and on until Juliana consented to sing one more song. The audience sat back down, and the hum of voices stopped, waiting for her. She sang, ‘Anytime You Want’,” the song she’d made popular from Heaven is to Your Left .
Again, the audience flew to its feet. I stood surrounded by cheering, clapping people. She’d really done it tonight. She’d arrived where she needed to be, the place I’d fought to take her. I was sure her mother was somewhere nearby, invisible to we mere mortals, but there to applaud her amazing daughter. I should be running backstage to greet her. We should be celebrating tonight together. We’d done it. Well, that’s what her note invited me to do. More or less. But things were different now. Not at all what was expected. It was hard watching her up there, while I stood at my seat. How did that poem go? ‘So close and yet so far.’
I led my friends past the crowds of exiting patrons and out the auditorium into the lobby. The lobby was dotted with small, intimate groups exchanging thoughts on the play.
“We’re going to meet her, aren’t we?” Freddie-Faye asked.
“You’re going to introduce us?” Deb asked. “You are, you are!”
“Leave her alone,” Janet said, “Can’t you see she’s sad?” She held the door as we all passed through; others pushed by us in their fat coats. It was colder than when we first arrived, and I pulled my coat tight around my body as I started down the sidewalk. How could I go to Sardis after that show and just shake her hand and pretend she was some acquaintance? I knew I was cheating them of a lifelong memory, but Janet had been wrong. I wasn’t sad. I wasn’t sure what I was, but ‘sad’ wasn’t it.
I turned in the direction of the subway, instead of Sardis.
“Won’t you be joining us?” Apple asked as he stepped onto the sidewalk from the lobby of the theater. “Surely, you got an invitation.”
“Uh, no.” I hurried to turn away from him and made quick steps up the street. Freddie-Faye, Deb and even Janet huddled around me. “Joining him where? Did you get invited to something?”
“Can we go?” Deb asked.
“No. It’s nothing.” I walked faster.
As we passed the alleyway between the Playhouse Theater and the theater next door, we saw a line forming. “Hey, what’s that line for?” Freddie-Faye asked a heavy woman in a leopard coat and a brown hat.
“That’s the line to the stage door.” The woman said. “The stars come out that way. I’m waiting to get Juliana’s autograph.”
“Let’s do that too! Come on, Al. Get in line with us,” Freddie-Faye said.
“No, I uh, I can’t stay. You stay. Have fun.”
“But you could introduce us to her. That’d be even more fun,” Freddie-Faye said.
“Work to do,” I called, leaving them behind in the damp shadows.
“What’s the matter, Al?” Janet asked from behind me.
I turned toward her. A light wind shook a few drops of cold water from the branches of the tree above us. They landed on my hat and dripped down to my ear. She was the only one of the three who still stood there.
“Nothing. I have an appointment I forgot about so I can’t….”
“At 10:30 at night?”
“I’m in a strange business.” A picture of myself waiting in Juliana’s line many years ago floated back to me. “You should hurry so you don’t miss getting her autograph. She likes signing autographs.”
“How do you know?”
“Oh. Uh, just something I read. Gotta go.”
I started off but stopped again when I heard footsteps behind me. “Janet. Why are you following me?”
“I don’t need an autograph. But I do need a drink and I think you do too.”
“No, I’m not in the mood for partying. I have this appointment and…
“Who said anything about partying? You know this area. Where can we get a quiet corner to talk, guzzle down as much booze as we want and not get kicked out?”
* * *
We entered the Piccadilly Hotel lobby, a block away from the theater. As their ad said, it was ‘smartly located in the center of everything.’ The guy at the entrance in the blue uniform and the yellow epaulets pointed us to the Circus Bar. Men and women arriving for an after-theater drink crowded the lobby. Some headed for the Georgian Room where they served elaborate food as well as alcohol; others, like Janet and me went straight to the Circus Bar.
At the entrance to the bar, we were greeted by the host who led us toward a small square table in the back of the room, about as far back as he could possibly get us without smashing through the wall. It was shockingly late for two women to enter a bar with no men. We were suspicious despite our fancy clothes—or perhaps because of them. Bars could be closed down for harboring prostitutes. It infuriated me that this guy could think I was one of those.
“Al. This place,” Janet said, staring up at the ceiling. “It’s gorgeous. Doesn’t look like any bar I’ve ever been in before.”
“Glad you like it. It’s too late now for entertainment on that stage…” I pointed at the drawn curtain as we passed. “…But I’ve introduced new clients to New York right there.”
Our waiter dropped two menus with the drink list on the table in front of us after helping us to sit. The expression on his face told me he was not too happy playing the gentleman for ‘our kinda women.’ I wanted to punch him right in his—Oh, well, that wouldn’t be lady-like. As we picked up our menus deciding what to order Sally popped back into my mind. The night that creep stepped on me, she held my head in her lap and wrapped her lavender blanket around me. She kissed me gently on my lips and never once complained that I wasn’t doing my butchly duties of servicing her needs. How dare I mind that Sally was a prostitute! Who did I think I was?
When I looked up from my menu, I saw what must have been apparent all night. Janet had been tippling a bit before the show. She certainly wasn’t roaring, but she had that look she’d get when we gathered in the bars. Maybe that explained her lack of anxiety and need to please that she usually displayed when she was closer to sober.
“Order whatever ya want,” I said, “It’s on me.”
“Never say that to a drunk, but… in that case …” She brought the menu close to her face like she was going to crawl into it.
“Just not the French 75,” I warned her. “I had that in Paris, and it came close to killing me.”
“Oh, well, then, that one sounds perfect.”
“What?”
“Nothing.” She smiled. “Bring me a Cuba libre,” she said to the waiter, who’d just appeared at the table with an order pad.
“And I’ll have a Grand Marnier, thank you,” I said.
The waiter nodded and left with our menus. Janet’s eyes scanned the ceiling and the walls again.
“I always wanted to come here,” Janet said still looking around. “But never had a man to take me.”
“Then I’m glad I could accommodate.”
“Wouldn’t these folks pop their girdles if they knew we were on a date?”
“Date? Uh, Janet I…”
“Relax. I’m only kidding.”
“Oh. You know you and I have never had much of a chance to talk. I’m glad we can now.”
“But I suggested we go someplace because you needed to tawk. Not me.”
“Still, I’d like to know ya better. Better? I don’t know ya at all. You were in the service, weren’t ya?”
“Yeah. I wonder where those drinks are?”
“They’ll be here soon. We just ordered.”
“I tawk better with a drink in my hand. Yeah, I was in the service.”
“The World War or Korea.”
“Does it make a difference? It was a war, and I was in it because I love this country. Where the hell are those drinks and what am I doing sittin’ here in this silly dress?”
I touched her hand. “Helping me. Remember?”
“Oh, yeah.” A big grin spread across her face. “I wanna listen to you. ” The waiter put our drinks in front of us.
“At last,” Janet exclaimed, taking in a rather large sip from her glass. “Now, I can function. Tell me about you and Juliana.”
“I’ve already told you all there is to tell. I don’t know her all that well.”
“But you know she likes to sign autographs.”
“I told you I read that in some…”
“I’m not buying it. You know her. What I don’t get is why you’re hidin’ it. If she were my friend, I’d be shoutin’ it from the roof of this place. Is she the ex?”
I took a sip of my drink. “You’re very astute. Look, that’s over. Another part of my life. I don’t want to be discussing it with Freddie-Faye and Deb and whoever…”
“Hey! I’m no blabber mouth. I stick pretty much to myself. The quiet, observant type, which you should have noticed by now.”
“I have.”
“So, if you don’t wanna tell me, don’t. I’m fine. Just so long as the old master, John Barleycorn, keeps playing that soft music in my head.” She took a sip of her Cuba libre and gazed into the distance as if she had just gone far away.
“You still with me, Janet?”
“Huh? Oh, yeah, but the music is beautiful. The music in my head, that is. Brought to me by that ol’ master, John Barleycorn.”
“I don’t think I understand.”
“Did you see Long Day’s Journey into Night ? Eugene O’Neill. Five or six years ago. The older brother, Jamie, calls his whisky, the master, John Barleycorn. Stuck with me. The idea of John Barleycorn bringing music. It’s kinda like that. Soothing. So, tell me about you. What music is playin’ over and over in your head?” She took another sip of her Cuba libre.
“I tried to see her tonight.”
“Really?” She leaned her arms on the table and extended her body toward me. “Do tell.”
“I left a note at the stage door. They know me over there. I’m sure Ron gave it to her. I just asked her to meet me. She didn’t show.”
“Probably there was some reason.”
“Yeah. She coulda been running late for Curtain or Richard was backstage with her. It’s okay.”
“Well, it’s not okay. But I’m sure there is a good reason.”
“I’m s’posed to go to a reception for The Baker of MacDougal Street tonight. She invited me. I should be there now.”
“Why aren’t you?”
“I don’t know. I might still go. Maybe I’m not ready yet. The war hurt ya, didn’t it?”
“It hurt everybody.”
“I guess, but a whole lot came home awfully proud. You don’t seem proud.”
She took another few sips from her glass, her eyes roamed over the ceiling and down to the couples who sat at tables, smoking, laughing, talking. A young man in a tux, his bow tie undone, situated himself behind the baby grand piano and began playing softly in the background.
She finally said, “I was proud once. I was real proud to wear my country’s uniform. Both.”
“What?”
“You asked me which war. I was in for both. World War II and Korea. But the big war, the world war that one we really had something to fight for. Who knows what Korea was for? At basic I was proud. I’d always been athletic. Of course, I don’t look it now.” She looked down at her large body pressing against the seams of Deb’s lavender formal— “but then…. Ya know a lot of the girls would complain—I’ up at five, doing calisthenics, drillin’, runnin’, gosh they kept us going—but I loved every minute of it. I’d finally found myself. Where I belonged.”
“That’s why you were still in even for Korea?”
“I was planning a career. I never wanted to leave.”
The waiter came and took Janet’s empty glass; mine was still half full. “Would you care for another, ma’am?” he asked.
“I sure the hell would,” she said, slapping a heavy fist on the table to make her point.
The waiter backed up a little, then nodded and left our table.
“Uh, Janet? Are you all right?”
“Sure. Whatchya mean?”
“Well—the way you spoke to the waiter. That’s really not…”
“Not polite, huh? I’m never very polite when I get a coupla drinks in me. Sorry. Since it’s your dime I’ll try to be more gentile. Forgive me?”
“Sure. Go ahead. I wanna hear your story.”
“But what about your reception tonight. You should go. That’s probably going to be real fancy, and you’ll get to say hi to your ex. And what an ex? Phew, be still my heart.” She put a hand to her breast.
We both laughed. “Yeah, she is certainly attractive,” I agreed. “And it doesn’t even show that she turned forty this year.”
“No kidding?”
“Oh, gosh, I shouldn’t have said that.”
“My lips are sealed.” She pretended to lock her lips with a key and throw the key away. “But wouldn’t ya rather be with that gorgeous woman tonight? Instead of me, a fat drunk.”
“Stop calling yourself names. Lavender’s your color. That gown looks good on you.”
“I’m not gonna touch that bull with a ten- foot pole. What I want is an answer to my question. Why are you here instead of there?”
“She wants to honor me for the work I did on her career.”
“And that’s a bad thing?”
“No. But it’s a very public thing. Our relationship was never public. Pretty much it was private. No, it was secret. I’m just happy she knows I gave a lot to her career.”
“And that’s enough? No.” She pointed a finger at me. “You wanna still be running her career. Maybe more? But hubby is in the way and she won’t dump him.”
I laughed. “You think you’ve got my whole life figured out, don’t ya?”
“How close am I?”
“I worked hard on building her career. I’m afraid Richard, her husband, whose managing her now, but doesn’t know what he’s doing, will screw up my work and I don’t want to think about that. You were going to make a career outta the army, but you didn’t. Why?”
“A couple of years before the war after high school I didn’t do much. I didn’t know what to do. I mighta been depressed. My mother was always telling me, ‘Find a fella,’ she imitated a sweet woman’s voice. ‘Let a fella take care of ya. That’s how it’s s’posed to be.” Janet laughed. “Mom’s a dear. She doesn’t understand any of this, uh, homosexuality, and the poor thing keeps blamin’ herself. She reads all them magazines that quote shrinks that tell her people like us are this way ‘cause of our mothers and she cries and cries. Makes me feel awful. I wish they’d stop blamin’ my mother for me bein’ me. It’s not fair, ya know?” Her voice was getting a little loud and she seemed wound up. I worried I’d end up in a part of her life I didn’t want to be.
“I got a job in Queens,” she went on, “that’s where Freddie-Faye and I grew up. We still all live out there. After moping around for a year or two after high school I got a job as a grease monkey. I helped this old guy fix the cars that came in and I pumped the gas. Drove my mother outta her mind.” Again, she imitated. “‘That’s not the right kinda work for a young lady.’ At the time, Mom didn’t know about Freddie-Faye or Don, so she thought I was the only—uh—odd ball in the family. Finally, I told Freddie-Faye she’d better tell Mom what was so obvious only a mother couldn’t see it, that she was gay too or I’d tell our Mom ‘cause I was tired of bein’ the only sick one in the family. So, Freddie-Faye told Mom she was gay too. Poor Mom. Cried for days.”
“Freddie-Faye told me there was a bunch of you who were gay in your family. You mean there are four kids and three of them are gay?”
“No, we have six kids in the family and four of them are gay. My little brother just told Freddie-Faye and me, but we’d been suspecting since he was three. The real odd balls in my family are the twins, Ernie and Dorie, the oldest. They’re the ‘normals.’”
“So many. How is that possible?”
“My mother musta been one really lousy mother?”
“You think that did it?”
“No,” she laughed. “But my mother does. Most shrinks think it’s the mother’s fault, but I don’t. When I got back from the WACs and Mom knew about me, she’d drive me outta my mind with saying ‘find a fella, find a fella. That’ll cure ya.’ I used to ‘remind’ her it was her fault I was this way and she’d cry. Mean of me, but I felt mean then. Now, I want to spend the rest of my life makin’ it up to her. She hasn’t had an easy time of it. My father deserted us when my little brother was only a few months old. She’s been workin’ in a grocery store for years, plus she used to clean rich folks’ apartments part-time to keep us going. Ya gotta admire that. Freddie-Faye and my older brothers and sister give her money now, so she don’t gotta clean other folks’ smelly apartments no more. I don’t do nothin’ much to help her.” She looked away.
“But you’re working. I thought Freddie-Faye said…”
“Yeah. I work at the assembly line with Freddie-Faye. I sweep up, but I’m not reg’lar. Only when they need extra help.” A few hours a week.”
“Why’s that?”
“Cause that’s what I work!”
“Oh. Sorry. Didn’t mean to pry.”
The waiter set her drink in front of her. “Hey, buddy,” Janet said to him. “Do yourself a favor and just line up four of them right here in front of me. That way you don’t gotta keep comin’ back and forth wearin’ out the soles of them lovely black shoes. Those gotta cost lotsa dough and on a waiter’s salary, well… But do a good job keepin’ me supplied and you’ll earn yourself a big tip. Won’t he, Al?”
“Uh, yes, of course.” I gave a weak smile to the waiter, thinking how my own salary was cut in half and more cuts might be coming.
“And she’s loaded.”
“Janet,” I whispered as the man left our table.
“Well, ya are, ain’t ya?”
“Not exactly. But that’s beyond the point. You don’t speak that way to waiters.”
“Maybe you don’t…”
“So, what happened that made you change your mind about staying in the service?”
“Why aren’t you rushing off to that reception?”
“Are we at one of those Mexican standoffs?”
“Could be. You first.”
“The last time I saw Juliana was August 1956. We spent a weekend together at a mountain retreat she owned in Maine. Or rather, should I say, she owned with Richard, her husband. But Richard hadn’t been there in years. Hay fever. She used it as her getaway spot. We spent one and a half days filled with completely seamless hours, playing, swimming, reading, making love. It was like there was no outside world. There was only the two of us and we were enough. At night she set up a makeshift nightclub with round tables and wine and a high-fi with records she had recorded. I was her only customer, and she was my only performer. She sang with the records into a microphone. At the very end she walked me up the stairs to a bedroom she had prepared for us. There was a canopy bed and a wide window that looked out onto the mountains. We lay in the bed looking out the window at the stars splashed across the sky. And we made love.”
Janet sighed, leaning her elbow on the table, her fist supporting her chin. “Wow. That’s romantic.”
“Yes, it was. So, tell me, how do I go to that reception and engage in small talk with her, with her husband, with her silly guests and let our special time together sink into some distant untouchable past? Pretend it never happened?” I took a sip of my Grand Marnier. What happened to make you change your mind about staying in the service?”
“I was a cute young thing back then. Thin with a good figure. You shoulda seen me. About your size. If you can believe that. But bigger tits and taller. I was lots younger, of course. Jeeze, how old was I back then? How long’s the war been over?”
“Uh—I don’t know. It ended officially in, uh, what, forty-five, wasn’t it?—
“I was eighteen when I went in. 1944. I spent most of the war dreamin’ of when I was old enough to qualify to sign up and afraid I’d miss it. Jeepers, I was younger than Deb when I finally reached the age to enlist.”
“I volunteered at the Stage Door Canteen.”
“A good thing to do. Important. Even if they didn’t let us girls in. At least the guys were, and I provided the entertainment and the care. Remember that feeling of dedication we all had? How you’d do just about anything for your country and how we all had to pull together?”
“Yeah. It and a special time.”
“I miss it. Does that sound terrible? To miss a war.”
“No. I know what you mean.”
“Only folks who went through it can know. These young kids today… They don’t know. They don’t know what it was like to give yourself so completely to something so big, so important you’d die for it. All we sacrificed. The rationing.”
The waiter placed four high ball glasses of Cuba libre in front of Janet. I drank down the last of my Grand Marnier and squinted at the waiter’s name tag—Ronald Schneider. “Hey Ronny,” I said, “bring me a horse’s neck. Make it with Brandy. In a highball glass. Three of them. Bring all three now. We have lots to talk about.”
Janet lifted one of her glasses, saluted the waiter, and started on her first high ball.
“So, when did you come to the city to live?” she asked.
“In forty-one before the war. I came with a friend to meet my boyfriend who was already living here.”
“You had a boyfriend?”
“Isn’t that how we all start out?”
“Not me. Never had a boyfriend. Never wanted one. Oh, well, there was a brief minute I thought I did. For my mother’s sake. I felt bad that I couldn’t bring home the ‘fella’ she wanted me to have so there was this soldier.”
“You had a fling with a soldier.”
“Nah. He was really cute, and I thought maybe… I mean a bunch of other WACs were giving him the eye too, but he kept coming around me, so I thought… Nah, we became good friends. Neither one of us could do that dance.”
“You mean he … too?”
“Yup. What are the odds of that happening? Oh, but neither of us was real sure when we first met. I miss him. We used to have some deep heart-to hearts. He left a girl back home who he thought he was gonna marry. They were engaged. Then he found out he liked boys and he tried to not like them, but that didn’t work out, so he ran away to the war. He thought the army might help him get over it, but I think he was involved with some guy in the army too.
“My boyfriend was like that. We were gonna get married, but he couldn’t stop liking guys. He joined the army ‘cause he felt so ashamed.”
“That’s how it was for this guy too.” She swallowed down the last of one of the Cuba Libres. We used to keep in touch. Wrote back and forth. He’s married now. Moved with his wife to Long Island somewhere.”
“Where I used to live. Do you know what part?”
“Nah, I stopped writing after a while, and I don’t know what I did with his address.”
“Maybe you could find him in the telephone book and visit him. Long Island’s close.”
“Him, me and his wife? Hardly. And I’m vain enough to not to want him seeing me looking like—well, this weight. That time during the War was special. I had some very special women friends in the WACs who I also never see now. Of course, there was that horrible rumor that went around and spread like wildfire. Everyone believed it. It made us all feel real bad. You musta heard it. The one that said the WACS were a bunch of loose women who went to bed with any soldier who happened to cross her path. That one that said we was just like victory girls or—prostitutes.”
“Yeah, I heard it.”
“And you probably believed it.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Well, they said we was all pregnant without husbands. Or—lesbians . And they called us that. Les-bians. Such an ugly word.”
“I know.”
“Of course, the truth was many of us was gay girls. The problem was everyone believed the stereotype. That gay girls were mean and captured little girls, and only weak women would ever fall for one. Or they believed the reverse: any girl who just looked at a lesbian would instantly be hypnotized and fall down at her feet in undying adoration, and they’d be trapped in that world of sin and perversion forever. Gosh, I wish that one were true.” She leaned toward me, whispering, “There are some girls at the Bag that I’d just love to…” She grinned and sat back. “Well, you know. It’s not as easy as they think. One rumor said WACs were lesbian psychopaths who was prone to crime and might murder a man while he slept in his bunk. I heard people wondering with so many mannish women, code for lesbian, who was gonna wash the poor guy’s clothes and cook his food when he got home from the war? Lesbians and loose women were gonna destroy the whole fabric of the American family. How could anyone believe such things? But they did. It made recruiting new WACs hard toward the end of the war.”
“Sure, some of us were gay girls,” Janet continued. “and some of us had fallen in love with each other, but we weren’t psychopaths for Pete’s sake. We worked hard, all of us; I even spent some months in New Guinea surrounded by Japs while I sent signals out to our boys who was fighting the enemy. We were risking our lives, and we made a difference in that war. And then toward the end we had to hide, pretend we’d never been a WAC at all. Hardly any of us claimed those GI Benefits all the men got. The girls earned them too; they were qualified, but who wanted to stand in front of some registrar at some pretty little college and say, ‘Oh, yeah, I was one of those immoral WACs who screwed every soldier in the war, and I got a coupla kids at home? Who was gonna sell us one of those pretty little Levittown houses with the free TV and refrigerator if we showed up by ourselves to claim our VA mortgage? They sure wasn’t gonna give us one of them mortgages if we showed up with another woman. They hate us, Al.”
“I have some male friends,” I said, “Gay ones. I mean if you want a house maybe we could figure out a way…”
“I have a brother.”
“Yeah. So, then you can… we’re all used to posing, pretending to be what we’re not.”
“They’re not gonna give me one of them mortgages whether I show up with a man or not. They’re not gonna let me get a sweet little home in Levittown; they’re not gonna give me a GI school loan so I can go to college. They don’t give them to gay girls or lesbians . Gosh, I hate that word.”
“But they won’t know.”
“Yeah, they will, do.” she took a few gulps from her glass.
“Oh. You mean…
“They know and I’m outta dumb luck. It’s a long story. Not something I like talking about.”
“Oh.”
We smiled at each other awkwardly. She bowed her head and covered her ears with her hands as if blocking out sounds. With her head still bowed, she said, “It’s never quiet, ya know? Inside me.” Her eyes look haunted.
“Just breathe. Janet,” I said, scared. “You’re in the Piccadilly Hotel, Circus Bar.
“I know where I am, Al. I’m not completely crazy. You need to go to that reception. You’re strong. Stronger than me. Don’t follow their rules, Al. Don’t become invisible. We need you out there fighting.”
* * *
“You go in,” Janet said, leaning against a car a few doors down from Sardis. “I’ll stay right here.” She sure could hold her liquor. She had downed five strong Cuba Libres and knowing the Piccadilly Circus Bar, they didn’t hold back on the rum. I had a lot less to drink—I left two of the horse’s necks on the table when I paid the check—but still I walked a little wobbly.
“I don’t know about this, Janet. I can’t leave you out here by yourself. Let’s take a cab and go to another bar.”
“You have every right to go in there and say hello to her. You have an invitation.”
“But no escort and it’s after midnight.”
“I offered to be your escort.”
“Wouldn’t that go over big? What am I supposed to say to her?”
“Tell her what you thought of her performance tonight and who made it possible.”
“She knows how much I did. That’s why she invited me.”
“Then go in and show her you know how valuable you were to her. And if she prefers that fat husband to you then she’s out of her mind.”
I laughed. “How do you know he’s fat?
“Aren’t they always?”
“I guess something will come out of my mouth at the right time. But it’s too late to be arriving at a party.”
“It could be considered early at this hour. Or—I know—you had other parties to go to and just now had time to fit hers in. That’d be a good thing to say.”
“Maybe she changed her mind about me coming. She didn’t meet me at The Automat.”
“The Automat? That’s where you planned to have your liaison? No wonder she didn’t show.”
“Ya think that was it?” I said suddenly filled with anxiety.
“No, silly. I think she had a perfectly valid reason for not getting there, like she had a husband hanging onto her neck. Now go.”
“What are you gonna do out here by yourself?”
“Wait for you. Make sure you get yourself in there.”
“But you can’t stand out here leaning on a car, especially at this hour. You know what people think of women who do that.”
She pulled out her cigarettes from the purse I leant her. “I don’t mean to gripe, Al but I really hate carrying these things around.” She held up the purse.
“Me too,” I laughed.
She lit the cigarette. “Hurry up. It’s cold out here. I figure the amount of liquor I got in me will be good for keeping warm for about another hour, so move your rear. I’ll be fine. There’s no one around to think anything.”
“I’ll be quick. Then we’ll get a cab.” I walked up the sidewalk, my steps a little jagged. I stopped a moment to look back at Janet.
She still leaned on the car smoking her cigarette. “Go ahead. Wish her well. Give her a kiss for me.”
“You know you can come in. I have a ticket for you.”
“Not on your life. I’ll step all over everyone as drunk as I am.”
“You don’t seem drunk.”
“But I am. Quit stalling and get in there. My shoulders are getting cold. This silver fox furry thing is only covering part of me.”
I took in a deep breath. “Okay. Here goes.” I inched one step forward and turned back again. “This is wrong. You’re going to be too cold out here. I’ve got to get you home.” I walked back toward her. “We’ll get a cab and…”
“Stop making excuses and go. I’m fine. If I get cold, I have a flask right here I can…”
“You carry a flask?”
“What kinda drunk would I be if I didn’t. Just get in there, say hello, go to hell and come back. If you’re gone a long time, I’ll figure something very good happened and you two are in a closet together. I can get myself home. Believe me I know how to get myself home. Every drunk knows that, so scat. Now. And I want to hear all about it. You’re my hero.”
I headed for Sardis, my heart a kettle drum. I stood under Sardis canopy. I reached out a shaky hand and pulled open the door. I was met with bright lights, tables filled with patrons talking and drinking, the famous caricatures hanging on all four red walls. That certain tension you always feel at this hour in Sardis buzzed through me. It was contagious without my even checking my watch. It must be getting close to twelve thirty.
“May I help you, ma’am,” a masculine voice from behind me asked. I saw that the man who’d addressed me was Ernest, the Captain. “Yes, Ernest, I’m meeting my escort here.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Oh, Al, Al,” Felix Appino, the head waiter, hurried over to me, his hands dancing through the air. “It’s been a complete madhouse. Everyone has been talking about how wonderful the opera was, how simply divine Juliana was. And you made it all happen for her.”
“Well, I don’t know…”
“That’s what Juliana said. Oops! There goes that darn phone again. It’s been ringing off the hook. Friends, wives, husbands, lovers. Oh, you know how it is. My life is one glorious misery, and I really must answer that. The papers will be here soon, and the chaos will double.” He ran off shaking his arms through the air.
I suddenly felt naked standing there with no escort to take me the last few steps into the heart of the room. I pulled myself up as tall as I could. I was on a mission, not only for myself, but for Janet too. I would see Juliana, wish her well and go. Sardis was my place too. I took a few steps into the room when Ernest rushed over. “Forgive me. I thought Felix was taking you to a table but let me help you with your coat. We’ll give it to Renee.”
I slipped my coat off into Ernest’s hands. “I’m really not staying long. I can keep it with me.”
“Heavens, no. I’ll bring it to Renee at coat check.” He draped my coat over one of his arms and extended the other toward me.
As we walked, I fumbled in my purse. “My ticket. You must want that.”
“From you? Don’t be silly.”
I stopped fumbling.
The tables were filled with men in tuxedos or tails and women in gowns and hats, all cheerfully chatting and drinking. I recognized quite a few faces. Did I really want to do this? Janet was waiting. My heart pounded. I should go, but I couldn’t just run out. I saw Signe Hasso seated at a near-by table. “Signe!” I called. Then I remembered her son had been killed a couple of months ago in a car accident and here I was yelling out her name sounding falsely cheerful like it was New Year’s Eve. Immediate shame and guilt.
“Al, come,” she said, graciously signaling me. I bent near her and we exchanged cheek kisses. “And you know my friend, Melvyn Douglas,” she said, pointing at the dignified man who’d just risen from his seat.
“Miss Huffman, of course, didn’t I meet you here at Sardis a few years back? You were celebrating Juliana’s hit, Heaven is to Your Left and I was drowning my sorrows after they closed my major flop, Birdcage.”
“Oh, well, you made up for it with your more recent work. You were brilliant in Inherit the Wind .”
“You make me blush.”
“I doubt that.”
“Won’t you join us.” He pulled out a chair for me.
“No. I can’t stay. I just stopped by to say congratulations to….”
“It’s here! It’s here!” A young man in white tails yelled as he ran into the room. Two young guys in ordinary blue suits dashed in behind him tossing copies of the New York Times and The Herald Tribune onto the tables, some landing on the floor. Customers in formal dress, dignified leaders of stage and screen, pushed each other out of the way, grabbing newspapers from the floor, and if necessary, out of each other’s hands trying to be first to read the reviews of Juliana’s opera. An outsider might think a brawl had just broken out at Sardis, but it was all good-natured desperation. They wanted to know if they or a loved one would have a job after tonight.
The review section had been kindly marked by the staff of the two papers which made it easy to find. I was too frozen to even go for a paper, so I sat at the table. Signe, who also wasn’t grabbing for a paper, leaned over and said to me. “It’s terribly exciting, isn’t it? Things have been slow for me lately, but, oh how I remember the forties.” I could hear the slight touch of her Swedish accent. She had almost been the next Garbo. This business was filled with too many ‘almosts’ and ‘almost’ was never enough.
Then I saw her . She stood near the piano at the front of the room. She wore a rose-colored mermaid dress that showed the magnificent lines of her figure. The top dipped down into a V showing a bit of cleavage. As I smiled at people passing by, voices saying, “Wasn’t she wonderful.” “Such a voice.” “So attractive.” I shook inside. I wanted to run and grab her and… There was nothing for me to do at the moment but wait. Breathe, Al, breathe.
Some gay chorus boys were gathered around the piano, laughing and trying to grab the one newspaper they had between them. Some boys I recognized from shows I’d been involved with. Should I just go up and say my congratulations and leave? She was surrounded by hordes of people, jabbering in her face. I couldn’t just…Of course, I could. No one here would question my going up to her. Most simply accept me as her manager or perhaps ex-manager. I didn’t like the sound of that. I tentatively rose. I’ll let her know I saw the show and how good I thought she was and then I’ll go. Simple. I stood ready to move toward her when—Richard appeared beside her. He held an open New York Times in her direction. They smiled and nodded at each other. A cheer went up and I could’ve cried. I should be at her side. Not him . I should be sealing her great success with a kiss, not standing back here, watching.
Felix, Ernest and the other waiters rushed in holding trays filled with glasses and bottles of wine for the big toast. A pianist I didn’t know sat at the piano playing music from the show.
We drank wine and toasted Juliana; Richard stood beside her toasting. We drank wine and toasted the rest of the cast; we drank wine and toasted the crew; we drank wine and toasted the audience. We drank wine and toasted whoever was left. Lights from flashbulbs sent blue circles in the air. Everyone was mobbing her. I was sure she didn’t even know I was in the same room. I lost track of Richard.
As they talked and looked over sheet music, the pianist played running chords and certain notes. She hummed a few bars here and there and they both laughed. The audience was taking their seats at the tables. I reluctantly started to sit, but… No. She was going to sing. How delicious to be once more surrounded by her sounds. I must get closer. I stepped toward the table in front of me; people were still standing, lighting cigarettes, smoking, blocking my progress toward her. I squished myself past big men who stood like huge sequoias in my way. I wanted to mow them down in my attempt to get to her, but I opted for sliding unseen between them.
Jule softly sang a few words from an old World War 2 song. “Someday when I’m awfully low, when the world is cold…”
She pushed a back few strands of hair that had slid into her face and looked up. For one moment our eyes met. My heart fluttered. She saw me. I know she did. It was quick, but I know it happened. It did, didn’t it? She whispered something to the pianist, and he took out some sheet music, different from what they’d been looking at. He propped it up on the piano and played the introduction. She began to sing, “When I fall in love it will be forever…”
Yes! She’s singing that song to me. I know it. An electric charge shot upward from my lower parts right into my heart, taking my breath away with it. Then I saw him—again—Richard. He sat at the first table in the first seat, only a couple feet from her. Was she really singing to him? No, that couldn’t be. The angle wasn’t right.
I got lost in her eyes, the eyes that I was sure were meant for me as she sung more and more…. Big Gentlemen and large ladies pressed their bodies against mine trying to be closer to her and I felt myself being smothered in flesh.
I stepped back and returned to my table with Signe.
“What are you doing here?” I looked up to see Richard trying to get into the seat between Signe and me. “Excuse, ma’am,” he said to Signe, “I need to speak to Al.”
“Certainly.” Signe jiggled her chair a few inches away so he could get into the seat. He’d gained quite a bit of weight.
“I have a ticket, Richard.” I held out the crumpled cardboard I’d retrieved from my purse. “But they know me here, so no one asked for it.”
“I don’t want you here. You’ll just mix her up again.”
“I’m not here to hurt her or you, Richard. I just wanted to serve as a gentle reminder that I was the one who got her that opera.”
“You’ve been paid.”
“A minute, Richard, I wanna listen.”
She sang, “And the moment I can feel that you feel that way too is when I fall in love with you.”
Surprisingly, he didn’t interrupt while I listened, and she was definitely looking over the heads of her audience at me. I was sure of it. I think.
When she finished and her audience was applauding, I turned to Richard. “You more than anyone knows that this has never been about money so don’t insult me.”
“You were my friend,” Richard said. “At least, I thought you were. Now, I don’t know what to think. I love her.”
“I know you do, Richard.” I whispered, “And I know you’re her husband, which gives you certain rights that I don’t have; but, Richard, she happens to be in love with me and I’m in love with her and that is not in your control.”
“Remember where you are,” he said, sharply. “At least, have some respect for that.
“Richard. We are not in a church. If you look carefully you will find that there are others in this room of my—persuasion.”
“Filth! I don’t understand any of this, but I know it’s sinful and disgusting.”
“I can’t say I understand it either, but I know it’s not sinful or disgusting. Some people are just different from other people. I am. So is your wife.”
“Stop. You will not talk about my wife in this manner.” He struggled to get out of his chair but fell back down onto the seat. I got out of my seat and moved my chair away from the table. “Here let me help you,” I said.
“Never mind.” He got up from his chair and pushed my hand away. “I can do it.” Breathing heavily, he walked away from me toward his wife.
I watched him give her quick a kiss on the lips. I gathered that was for my benefit.
“This isn’t finished, Richard,” I whispered, “but surprisingly, even to myself, I bear you no ill-well. I merely love her, and she loves me. It’s as simple as that.”
I took a step toward her and stopped. I can’t. I can’t stand up there next to her, next to him , looking into her face, exchanging empty pleasantries. Our love is so much more than any of that. There’ll be another time. Another time when we will reach out to each other and touch. I have to wait till then.
I said my good-byes to Signe and Melvyn and headed toward Renee at coat check. I left her a rather hefty tip. “Gee, Al,” Renee said, “I like it when you only stay twenty minutes. It works out terrific for me. You oughta do it more often.”
As I approached the exit, I felt a certain clarity. That article in One Magazine, “Homosexual Rights,” came back to me. I had to go home and read that again. Then tomorrow I must contact Tony and Sam about planning our first Mattachine, New York meeting.
I dropped some bills into Felix and Ernest’s hands. Ernest held the door for me. As I exited into the cold, damp air I heard her begin, “Once I had a secret love…” Oh, yeah, she knew I was there. This is not over. It’s just the beginning.