Strings Attached, Page 3

  For a moment, we all stood staring at Nate, as though if we tried hard enough we’d be able to read his words in the air and have them make sense. Confused, Muddie looked at me. I shook my head, not understanding, either. Jamie? He was saying that Jamie … I couldn’t get my mind around what he was saying. Jamie wasn’t one of those milquetoasts from school. He was strong and big and athletic.

  Da’s skin was mottled. “Get out of my house! You can’t be saying that about my boy!” Da started toward Nate, furious, and got his hands on his lapels. Smaller than Nate, not nearly as strong, he was still able to shove him back toward the door.

  “Open your eyes! Your boy has corrupted him! He doesn’t know what he’s doing!”

  “My boy has corrupted yours?”

  “I can’t get him out of this, do you understand? He’s lost.” Nate was in the doorway now, staring at us blindly. “I’ve lost my boy!”

  Da pushed him out the door and shut it. Then he sagged against it. He seemed to be gathering himself for the simple act of breathing. Eventually, he looked up and met my eyes.

  “What do you know about this?” he asked.

  “About what? I don’t understand.”

  “He’s saying that … your brother” — Da seemed to have to force the words out — “is unnatural.”

  “It’s stupid,” I said. “Jamie is Billy’s best friend. That’s all.”

  Muddie, pale and trembling, backed up against the wall. “It was a terrible thing to say. We should pray.”

  “Go ahead and pray — it won’t change anything,” I said. “Da, I don’t know what he meant. Billy and I had a fight last night. I sent Jamie after him to help him. They’re pals, they’re friends — you know that.”

  “So there’s nothing in it.”

  “Of course not. Billy’s in love with me! Mr. Benedict is just crazy, and he’s taking it out on Jamie. Did you hear what he said? They enlisted. You have to go and tell the army he’s only seventeen. You can get him out. Go to the enlistment office and tell them. You can fix this for Jamie.”

  Da didn’t nod, or say a word. It was like he didn’t hear me. He went off to sit at the kitchen table.

  “What are we going to do?” Muddie whispered.

  “It’ll come out all right in the end,” I said. “We’ll straighten it out, and Jamie will come home.”

  “Did you break up with Billy? Oh, Kit. And you were going to marry him!”

  I didn’t want to see Muddie’s tears. I went back to my room and dressed quickly, pulling clothes out of the closet without looking at them. When I returned, Da was sitting at the table, hands clasped around a mug of tea. I filled the kettle and put it back on the burner. My thoughts clattered and clanged inside my head, slamming against my worry for Jamie and my anguish over Billy.

  The front door opened and closed. I hurried out of the kitchen. Jamie leaned against the door, dressed in the same clothes as the night before. He looked exhausted and pale. His tie flapped from his pocket. When he saw me, he shrugged in a helpless way.

  “Nate was here and told us you enlisted,” I said. “Is it true?”

  He swallowed. “I couldn’t let him do it alone.”

  And there were the eyes of my brother, that same honest blue. I couldn’t imagine him in a uniform. I couldn’t imagine him with a gun.

  “We’ll get you out of this. You’re only seventeen.”

  He didn’t say he didn’t want to get out of it, and that gave me hope.

  “Why?” I asked. “Why did you do it?”

  “It seemed like a good idea at the time,” he said. “Get away from everything.”

  “What do you have to get away from? What, damn you? I’m the one with the broken heart!”

  We stood in the dim light, staring at each other. There was a red crease across Jamie’s cheek, as if he’d slept on something that had pressed against his skin. He rubbed it slowly. “And you’re the only one, aren’t you?” he said.

  “You mean Billy? It seems like he can take care of himself. How could you let him do that, Jamie? You could have stopped him!”

  “How?” Jamie asked. He smiled without any humor in his eyes. “Maybe I just don’t have your charms, Kit.”

  It was a nasty crack, even though I wasn’t sure what he meant. I nearly pounced on him, just like I would when we were kids, fighting over marbles.

  I don’t know what would have happened if Da hadn’t stamped out from the kitchen and barreled down on us.

  “How could you do this?” he bellowed.

  Jamie looked down at his feet.

  “From the time you were a boy, you were like a soft day — all mist,” Da went on. “Delia used to say, spend more time with the boy, he’s with his sisters too much. I guess I should have. Too busy with work and worry. And now I reap what I’ve sown. I never knew what to make of you. Well, now you’ll make something of yourself.”

  “What are you talking about, Da?” I asked. “You’re going to get him out of it.”

  “He’s claimed his manhood,” Da said. “May it make him a man. Let him pack his suitcase and go.”

  “No!” I shouted.

  Jamie shook his head hard, back and forth, back and forth, as if to drive out what he heard behind Da’s words. Then he turned around and went to pack. Da stood over him, his arms folded, watching until the suitcase closed. Then he shook his hand and told him good-bye.

  He left a note for me.

  Kit,

  Sorry for all.

  J

  As if he didn’t even have the heart to sign his whole name.

  I knew Billy was gone when I read his name in the paper along with Jamie’s and all the others who had joined up to fight in Korea to defeat the Communists.

  Also in the paper, in a gossip column about Hollywood, I saw this:

  We hear … that Jeff Toland is back in Hollywood and raring to go after his automobile accident on Cape Cod this fall. Don’t worry, girls, that gorgeous profile is still intact! Word is he’s inking a new contract with Paramount and in talks for the lead role of Harry Manning in “Manning Makes Good.”

  Is that what Nate could do? Reach all the way to Hollywood and get Jeff a job? How many favors had he called in for that?

  My last argument with Da had us standing toe-to-toe, screaming into each other’s faces.

  “Let them make a man of him, let the army do it. God knows I couldn’t!” Da yelled, his face beet red with anger. “And you — no more working in nightclubs. What was I thinking, allowing that? No, from now on, it’s home after school and studying like a regular girl. I’ve lost control of this household. Thank the Lord that Muddie has a head on her shoulders.”

  “That’s no thanks to you,” I said. “You didn’t raise us. We just lived in the same house as you.”

  “I did the best I could —”

  “The best you could. Delia was right — you lived off us and you lived off her.”

  The words were out and I couldn’t take them back. Da turned away.

  I went on. “So now you want to catch up, prove you’re a good father? You’re going to let Jamie go to war just for that?” I hurled the words down the hall. “Well, say a prayer for yourself, Da. You just might have killed him!”

  That afternoon I made my plans. Ironed my blouses. Packed my suitcase. Muddie begged me to stay, with tears in her eyes, and I told her I’d write, that I would be leaving when I graduated anyway, and she was the smart one, so why should I stay just for a diploma? She brought in her blue chiffon scarf and put it in my suitcase and then ran back out to the hall so I couldn’t say no.

  Every once in a while Da came and stood in the doorway, saying, “And don’t think you can come back!” and “You’ll be back once you realize how hard it is to keep a roof over your head!” and “Please, Kit, I can’t bear to lose you, too.”

  I let him talk, and I didn’t answer. I was right there, and I was already gone.

  Four

  New York City

  Octob
er 1950

  I heard the piano music in my dreams. He played early in the mornings, probably before school, and I was half awake. I started thinking of him as Mr. Broadway. He’d play a classical number, something I didn’t recognize, of course, and then he’d swing into “Embraceable You” or “I Could Write a Book.”

  I’d lie in bed, listening, and for a while the piano would chase away the blues. I was out of work, and even though I didn’t have to pay rent, I needed money for food and stockings and toothpaste. I was getting down to my last dime, and it was plenty thin. I’d been hoping to step into another chorus job, but none of my auditions had panned out. Today I would look for a waitress job to tide me over. I tried not to think of this as defeat. Plenty of girls had jobs and managed to take classes and go on auditions, too.

  I was up and circling want ads when the phone rang. I didn’t want to answer the phone, afraid it would be Nate, but I was waiting for a callback. If you’re a dancer, you’ve got to pick up the phone.

  “This isn’t about Billy, so don’t blow up at me,” Nate said. “I know that your play closed. I’ve got a job lead for you.” He talked fast, like he was afraid I’d hang up. Before I did, he said, “At the Lido.”

  “A nightclub?” I said this automatically, even though my heart raced at the sound of the name.

  “Not just a nightclub. The Lido. You know what that means.”

  I knew. The Lido was class. The girls on the line were chosen as much for their elegance as their legs. Frank Sinatra played the Lido, Ethel Merman, Johnnie Ray, all the big names. And Hollywood movie scouts constantly dropped in, looking for the girl who stood out, the one they’d offer a Hollywood contract to. Lido girls were on the cover of Life and Look, they were in Walter Winchell’s and Cholly Knickerbocker’s columns.

  “Why are you doing this?” I asked.

  “Because you need a job.”

  “You can’t just fix everything, you know.”

  “Don’t make a federal case. I’ve got a new client in New York, he’s got a connection, I heard something, I’m passing it along. Look, the auditions are going to be on Friday. If you go tomorrow, you can get a jump on the competition. Just go see Ted Roper — he’s in charge of the shows. Two o’clock tomorrow. He’s expecting you. All I can do is get you in the door. I can’t get you the job, so relax.”

  Nate hung up with a soft click. No chance for me to say no. It was like he knew whatever I’d say would be a waste of his time. He knew I wouldn’t turn this down. He knew I’d be crazy to say no.

  I didn’t like him knowing all that. I didn’t like how staying here suddenly made me available to him whenever he felt like calling. I hadn’t counted on that.

  I didn’t have cab fare, so I’d have to walk to the Lido. When I got to First Avenue, I picked up a newspaper from the corner store. I flipped the paper in half so that I couldn’t see the screaming headline allies push on Pyongyang, fighting still heavy. I wouldn’t read the war news, but I’d need to skim the want ads if the audition didn’t work out.

  The owner took my nickel and smiled. “You’re back!”

  “Back?”

  He looked at me closer. “Oh, sorry. I thought I recognized you. Enjoy your day, miss.”

  I tucked the paper under my arm and headed west toward Second Avenue. One thing I hadn’t realized about New York was that it was a city of neighborhoods, and not just big ones, like Greenwich Village, but tiny ones, made up of just blocks. You went to the stores right near your apartment, and after a while people knew you. Soon that man would know my face and not confuse me with anyone else. Then I’d feel at home.

  Nightclubs shouldn’t be seen in daylight. I loved being in a theater at any hour, loved it especially in the daytime, with its smell of coffee and cigarettes and dust, but the glamorous nightclub I’d read about for so long and dreamed about just looked dingy and sad when the sun was up. It smelled like watered-down drinks with cigarette butts swirling in them, a bunch of sour reminders from four in the morning.

  A man checking receipts at the front told me to go on through to the dressing rooms, so I headed for the stage. The floors were being cleaned, and the furniture had been shifted around into clumps. Chairs and tables seemed to conspire against me on the way. I slammed a hip into a chair back, then bounced off the edge of a table.

  “Doesn’t bode well for the dance routines,” a man said. But he smiled at me in a friendly way.

  “Don’t tell the dance captain,” I said.

  “Good smile.” He wasn’t flirting, he was judging. “Joe didn’t say you were a redhead.”

  I didn’t know who Joe was, but I said, “Born with it, sorry to say.”

  “It’s okay, kid, you’ve got a look. I’m Greg. I’ll be playing your music.”

  “Kit Corrigan.”

  “So you want to be a Lido Doll, huh?”

  “Doesn’t everyone?”

  “I’ll tell Ted you’re here.”

  A tall, thin man in horn-rimmed glasses and khakis walked out onstage. He looked like a professor, but I could tell he was a dancer from the way he moved, elegant and easy. “This the girl?”

  Yeah, I was the girl. I was used to being the girl. I was used to the look he was giving me right now, sizing me up. Not in a personal way, in a way you’d size up a horse if you were a jockey.

  “Did you bring rehearsal clothes?”

  I nodded.

  He hadn’t introduced himself, but he was obviously Ted Roper, and I was expected to know that. “Let’s see if you can dance. You can change in the dressing room.”

  I knew about nerves, and I could make them work for me, but I felt rattled by Ted Roper’s obvious irritation. Maybe he was ticked off that Nate had pulled strings to get me in to audition early.

  In the dressing room, an ashtray full of cigarette stubs sat beneath a NO SMOKING sign. The lightbulbs in the wire cages washed out my skin. I fumbled in my purse for rouge. I pushed aside bobby pins, a comb, and a lipstick to clear a space on the counter. Quickly, I wriggled out of my skirt. I was already wearing my leotard. It was cold, so I kept on my sweater and tied a scarf tightly around my waist.

  A stout woman with iron-gray hair came in, her broad hands full of an explosion of tulle. The wardrobe mistress, I guessed.

  “Audition?” she asked in some kind of European accent. I nodded while I patted on a little rouge. She dumped the skirts on a table next to a sewing machine. “You should wear higher heels. What are you, a seven?”

  “Yes …”

  She walked over to a shelf full of shoes — pumps, sandals, gold and silver and an array of colors. She slammed a pair of black pumps on the counter. “Use these.”

  I slipped out of my own scuffed shoes and into the higher heels. I straightened my shoulders and looked at myself in the mirror.

  Back in Providence, Florence Foster, my dance teacher, had taught me everything, including how to walk. I’d been studying dance since I was eight. By the time I turned fourteen, she was telling me that I’d have to leave town. “You’re not getting anywhere in Providence, dolly,” Flo had told me. “Shake the dust of this town off your shoes and get yourself to Manhattan. White mink and diamonds, kid. That’s the big time. Don’t ask me if I think you should. And don’t come by and say good-bye. Just drop me a postcard.”

  Now I heard her croaking voice in my head. It’s not just the feet, it’s the arms, it’s the neck, it’s the goddamn elbows and the goddamn knees. Keep your face strong. Don’t simper like an idiot beauty queen. You’re a dancer. A dancer. Got it? You can’t forget about your pinky finger, for godsake, you’ve got to know what every muscle is doing, even your eyebrows. You’re a dancer.

  I’m a dancer, I told myself.

  “No time to be late,” the heavyset woman said. “He’s waiting to see how fast you dress. Around here, the clock hands move for Ted.”

  “Thanks. And thanks for the shoes.”

  I hurried back onstage, but I was careful to slow down as I got close. I kn
ew he’d be watching how I walked.

  The trick to auditions? You’ve got to not mind that they’re bored, or that they’re thinking about the last girl, or that they’re dying for a smoke. You’ve got to think about your own joy.

  So I danced. He threw combinations at me, and I kept up. It was like he wanted a reason to flunk me, just like old Mrs. Babbitt back in American History.

  But he couldn’t. There’s nobody I can’t please. Nobody.

  Finally, he signaled for Greg to stop playing.

  “So,” Ted Roper said, “you can dance.”

  I waited.

  “Three shows a night — I presume you know that? You come at six thirty and you get out at three a.m. And you have to be available for promotional pictures during the day, or special shows. You’re a replacement, so you’ve got to catch up fast. You’ll work with me for the rest of the week.”

  “Yes, Mr. Roper.”

  “You might as well see Sonia now — she’s the wardrobe mistress. She’ll tell you about your fittings. And hair. Every girl wears an upsweep. You’ll have to handle some headpieces in that dance.”

  “That’s not a problem.”

  “It better not be. Dress rehearsals on Saturday — look at the schedule in the dressing room after you talk to Sonia. If you’re late for dress, even a minute, I dock your pay.”

  He looked at me over his eyeglasses. I didn’t see contempt anymore, just … what? Like he felt sorry for me? “One more thing. I don’t stick my nose into the personal lives of my girls. But there’s no special treatment, no matter whose friend you are. Got it?”

  “I’ve got it, Mr. Roper.”

  “All right, Miss Corrigan, you’re hired.”

  When I walked out of that place an hour later I wasn’t just another pretty girl. I was a Lido Doll. I was somebody in New York City. I could feel my whole body adjust to the change. I used my hips in my walk now, challenging every man on the street not to notice me. They all did. When I smiled at a businessman walking by, he couldn’t stop looking and slammed right into a mailbox.