by Vanda
“No, it’s important. My family pays their way. That’s not much to start, but I get paid on Friday so I can give you, well—would fifty cents a week be okay?”
“Fine, if it makes you feel better, but please take this quarter.” She slipped it into my pocket. “I’ll fill this out another time.” She folded the paper and put it down her blouse. “If you ever want to find it you’ll know where to look. Now, we have to hurry. We have an appointment at the tailor.”
“Now?”
“In a half hour. We’ll grab a cab.”
“You should’ve told me. I could’ve had work or an audition.”
“Do you?”
“No. But I could’ve.
When the day arrived for the pants to be delivered, I ran all the way to Juliana’s house. Aileen, wrapped in her coat and hat, answered the door. “Good morning, miss.” She stepped aside so I could enter.
“Yeah.” I looked away from her face.
Since that day with the Bendix, I wasn’t comfortable around Aileen, and she never looked me straight on, either. “Mrs. Styles is waiting for you in the parlor, miss, and I’ll be off.”
I ran up the stairs. I couldn’t wait to get my arms around “Mrs. Styles.”
When I entered, Juliana was sitting on the couch reading a magazine. “How am I supposed to do this?” she asked.
“Do what?”
“This magazine says, with the war, instead of writing a shopping list I should go to the grocery store and choose from whatever is on the shelves because, as everyone knows, there’s nothing on the shelves. But I have to give the girls a list. How will they know what to buy?”
“I think that article’s for people who do their own shopping.”
“Well, what about me? I bought this new cookbook that’s supposed to give pointers on substitutes to make. Meatless dishes? I mean really. Beans and lentils? How can I serve that to my guests? We’ve already had to give up bananas, chocolate, and all manner of condiments. It’s impossible to find sugar even when you have a ration stamp, and we’re allowed such a small amount of everything else, what am I supposed to serve my guests at a dinner party? ”
“Kraft just came out with macaroni and cheese in a box. You can get two boxes for only one ration stamp.”
“You’re serious, aren’t you?”
“Well—we all have to sacrifice. Remember Pearl Harbor.”
“I buy war bonds. Isn’t that enough?” She looked at me and sighed, “All right, it’s not. You know, we’re completely out of Turkish tea.”
“What are we gonna do?”
“Now you get my point. We’ll do without, dear heart. I left your clothes in the bedroom. Change there. I want you to make an entrance.”
I headed toward the hallway, but she said, “No, my room. Over there.”
“This one?” I moved toward it hesitantly. “This one is only yours ?”
“That’s right.”
“Does that mean you don’t, you know, with him in here?”
“Get changed. We’ll have to have wine instead of tea. Maybe if we spend the war inebriated we won’t mind the shortages.”
Inside Juliana’s room there was a single bed, lots smaller than the one in the other bedroom; it was simply decorated in pale pastel colors, feminine like her.
I took the jacket and pants down from the closet door and laid them on her bed. This used to be his suit, but she cut it up for me . I spread the legs of the pants apart and faced—the zipper. Girls wore pants to go to their war jobs, but no girl ever wore pants with a zipper in the front like a man. Zippers on women’s pants were always properly placed on the side, the same as dresses.
I quickly got out of my dress, put the boy shirt on, and without putting on the pants, I struggled with the tie. Then I pulled on the pants and jacket.
“Put on the fedora too,” Juliana called. “It’s on the chair.”
When I appeared in the parlor Juliana waited for me on the sofa, drinking her wine. “My, you look good. But take the hat away from your fly.”
“My fly! Oh, gosh, I can’t have one of those.”
Juliana laughing pulled the hat out of my hands and stuck it on my head. I crossed my hands over the zipper.
“Al, stop that.” She pushed my hands out of the way. “I need to look at it.” She studied the stitching of the zipper, her fingers probing and prodding me there. “Oh, yes, he did a good job.” She ran her finger down the length of the zipper, and the surprised look on my face told her exactly what I was feeling. “You think that feels good? Wait until later when I unzip it very slowly .”
Just hearing the words made me tingle. Then she suddenly had this serious look on her face. “Al, you’re such a kid, and I know I should—I don’t know—do something.”
“About what? I’m not a kid. In May, I’ll be twenty-one. An official adult. I do responsible work at the Canteen. I get jobs in radio, and I support myself, and—”
“I know. It’s just ….” She walked over to the mantel, taking her glass with her. “I don’t like being in this position. I can’t be responsible. ”
“Responsible for what?”
She took a few sips of her wine. “This isn’t me. This isn’t what I do. So how did I get into this? Shirl said I had to.”
“Had to what?”
“I can’t be responsible for you. Do you understand that?”
“What are you talking about?”
She looked into her glass. “Shirl says it’s my job. Our world, Al, is perilous, fraught with danger at every turn. Shirl said I should tell you that.”
“Terrific. Maybe I should call Shirl up and find out what this is about.”
“I asked Shirl to do it, but she said I had to do it, but I …. All right—here it is. There’s danger beyond these walls that you need to know about so you can protect yourself.”
“The war?”
“Not the war. I mean the world I live in, that Shirl lives in, the one you apparently want to enter. You know you can’t go outside dressed like that, don’t you?”
“Is that what’s this is about? Clothes? I wouldn’t go out like this. I’d be embarrassed. People’d be staring and—”
“This is about a lot more than embarrassment or even clothes.” She took a swallow of her wine. “Even though some women have started wearing trousers on the street, it doesn’t mean you’re free to wear a tie, and jacket, and pants with a zipper in the front. You could be arrested.”
“Arrested?”
“For impersonating a man. There’s a law that says you can’t wear disguises in public, and dressing as the opposite sex is considered a disguise. You wouldn’t get burned at the stake like our poor Saint Joan, but you’d never have a career in show business. And the name-calling and ostracism might make burning at the stake sound rather appealing.”
“Gosh, Jule.”
“Look, I don’t want to scare you. Usually the cops don’t arrest you; they just threaten you. In an election year, you’re especially vulnerable. When there are no elections, generally, they just stop you and give you an embarrassing lecture about deportment or tell you that all you need to turn back into a real woman is their big dick inside you.”
“Juliana!”
“You can’t stay a naïve country girl. They can and will talk to you that way. A cop could ask you to prove that you’re wearing at least three items of women’s clothing, and if you’re not, they could arrest you.”
“Three items? Like what? Right now, I have a bra and underpants on. That’s only two. What’s the other one? You can’t wear a slip or nylons or a girdle with pants so what do you do?”
“I don’t know. Just remember if you ever do have some reason to go out in those clothes you have to mentally check yourself to make sure you can count three items. Maybe if you wear a necklace under your suit that would count. ”
“I’d have to show a policeman my bra and underpants right on the street or he could arrest me?”
“I suppose. I’ve never
been in that particular situation. I just hear things. I want you to be aware of what could happen so you’re prepared. And there’s another reason you have to be especially careful.”
“You mean ’cause what happened to Shirl could happen to me?”
“You know?”
“Virginia Sales told me. Then she went into her ‘we live in a dangerous world, little girl,’ speech. Something like yours.”
“This is no joking matter. Understanding these rules could be the difference between you walking away alive and not walking away.”
“Virginia told me what happened to Shirl, but I’m nothing like Shirl.”
“In those clothes, you are.”
“What happened to Shirl sounded terrible.”
“It was. We almost lost her.”
“We? You were there too? Virginia said she was beaten up bad.”
“There was something else. No one knows this. Not even Virginia. Only Shirl’s friend, Mercy, and me. I’m going to tell you so you keep yourself safe, but this can never go further than these walls.”
“You can trust me, Jule.”
“Shirl was raped.”
“Gosh.”
“That took longer for her to come back from than the physical beating. So be careful. Outside in the world this is no game. Out there, they hate us. They would destroy us if they could. However, if we blend in, be quiet, act like them, they leave us alone.” She downed the last of her wine. “But, when we are alone …. Stand up and let me see how those clothes really fit.”
She kicked off her heels, sat on the couch, and wrapped her legs around me, pulling me into her. She tugged at my jacket, turned me around, and put her hands in my back pockets. She turned me over her knee while she ran her hand over my rear and in between my legs. She said she was checking the fit, but neither one of us believed that. When she started spanking me, we laughed so hard we fell on the floor.
Chapter Forty-Eight
Later in the week, Juliana and I rode up in the elevator to the Ninth Floor—Spivy’s Roof. She wore a green, collarless suit dress with a green and white scarf. Her hair was held in place by a snood with tiny gold stars on it. I wore a plain, blue, cotton dress with a small hat that sat on the back of my head.
“What happened on the phone?” I asked.
“Nothing. We’re going to have fun now.”
“You were yelling into the phone and now you’re angry and—”
“I’m not angry.”
“Why can’t you tell me who it was?”
“I swear if you don’t stop interrogating me ….” The elevator door opened and we stepped out. She led the way to the hatcheck girl where we dropped off our coats. I followed her into a shadowy room crammed with people crowding around little tables.
As we walked deeper into the room, it began to sparkle with mirrors and metal objects. Toward the front, there was a bar with a line of men, some in bow ties and white tails, others in uniforms of the various services. Piano music came from an alcove hidden in shadow. A young man in white tails played “I’ll Be Seeing You” with an enthusiastic flourish.
Shirl charged up to us. “I’ve got a table over here.”
“It certainly is crowded tonight,” Juliana said.
“So how’d it go?” Shirl asked.
Juliana shook her head.
“I’m sorry.”
Shirl led us through the maze of tables. “Juliana,” I said, as we squeezed past people’s knees. “You told Shirl who was on the phone today, but you won’t tell me. ”
“Not now.”
“You’re treating me like a child.”
“Well, hello, Juliana,” a woman with a deep voice said.
Juliana and I stopped while Shirl kept going.
A short, stout woman dressed in a black dress sat at a table, grinning at Juliana. Her dark hair was combed into a rigid pompadour with a white streak going down the middle.
At the table, next to her sat another woman hidden in shadow, but when I squinted my eyes I thought she was …. Nah, couldn’t be. The smoke from her cigarette fanned out over her face making it hard to tell.
“Hello, Spivy,” Juliana said.
“You mean Madame Spivy. I still deserve your respect. So is this the new one?”
“This is my friend, Al Huffman.”
She looked me up and down like she was measuring me for a coffin. “How’s she look naked?” I had to fight the urge to cover myself with my arms. “Her breasts are awfully small, especially when you’ve had your hands full of these.” She lifted her own enormous breasts with her two hands as if she were shopping for melons at the greengrocer.
“Her breasts are fine,” Juliana said.
Fine? I’d thought. That’s all. Just fine?
“And that will be enough of that kind of talk. Al is a respectable girl.”
Madame Spivy let out a guffaw.
The woman in the shadow moved so that the dim light from the ceiling danced in her hair. It was her! Tallulah Bankhead! Sabina in Skin of Our Teeth ! She was so good in that part.
“Yes, dahling,” Miss Bankhead said, a stream of smoke coming from her nose and mouth, circling her head. “It is me, dahling. At least it was when I read the label on my underpants this morning.”
“Since when do you wear underpants?” Madame Spivy said, and they both laughed.
Miss Bankhead turned to Madame Spivy. “Don’t speak so crudely in front of this sweet, young thing. She looks like she just stepped off the turnip farm and probably doesn’t know a thing about the wicked ways of wicked women. Do you, dahling?”
“I know enough,” I said. They both laughed again. “And forgive me, Miss Bankhead. I don’t mean to be critical, but I believe you mixed your metaphors.”
“Did I?”
Juliana stared at me, her brow furrowed.
Miss Bankhead chuckled. “You are a dahling, dahling. Hang on to this one, Julie.”
“Well, Shirl is waiting,” Juliana said.
“I thought that was Shirl who whizzed by,” Madame Spivy said. “How rude. And what on earth, Juliana, have you been doing with yourself? That is, when you don’t have your fingers in this child’s pussy. Or is it your tongue?”
I grabbed the back of someone’s chair, so I didn’t fall over.
“We keep expecting to hear great things about you,” Madame Spivy continued, “but alas, nothing.”
“Soon, Spivy dear. Soon.”
Juliana did an about-face and squeezed through the remaining tables. I followed.
We reached Shirl’s table. She wore a navy-blue suit with wide lapels, a red and gray tie, and was smoking a cigarette instead of a cigar.
“I forgot how unpleasant that woman can be,” Juliana said as she sat down. “I need a drink.” She ripped off her gloves and stuffed them into her handbag. “Are you all right, Al? I’m sorry she was so crass.”
“Why do you think I rushed ahead,” Shirl said, “pretending I didn’t see her?”
“I thought it was because you were afraid she was going to ask you to borrow money again.”
“That too. That woman cannot be trusted.”
“She gave me a hard time about my career.”
“Don’t you worry about it, honey. You’re going to have the last laugh. Waiter,” Shirl called. “Can we see a drink menu?”
The waiter passed out three small folded cards that listed the drinks that Spivy’s Roof served.
“She’s getting a minimum of $2.25 per person?” Shirl balked. “That’s outrageous.”
“Well, I see that she doesn’t serve sidecars. I guess I’ll have a brandy. How about you, Al?”
“I’ll have the same.”
“Bring me a beer,” Shirl said, “and a glass of wine for the little woman. She’s been delayed, but I expect her any minute.”
“Please don’t do that,” Juliana whispered after the waiter left. “Referring to Mercy as ‘the little woman.’ We’re in public.”
“That’s your concern, not
mine. Besides Spivy’s is the one place where we can almost be ourselves. That’s why I suggested we come here. To show Al a place where ‘our kind’ can mingle with the ‘people.’“
“Even Spivy doesn’t like it when people are too obvious.”
“Too obvious?” Shirl laughed. “Before the night’s out, Tallu will be in Spivy’s lap sucking on her tits—or worse.”
“Shirl, please! Don’t talk that way. We’re in public.”
“You mean,” I started, totally shocked. “You mean Spivy and Tallulah Bankhead are …?”
“Yes,” Shirl said, leaning toward me, excitement filling her voice. “They’re very special friends.”
“No,” I said, just as enthusiastically, hoping she’d tell me more.
“It’s not polite to talk about it,” Juliana interjected. “Where are those drinks?”
“They’re coming,” Shirl said. “We just ordered. Relax and listen to the new piano player. Spivy lost another one last week.” She stamped out her cigarette in the ashtray, took out a pack of Camels, lit another cigarette, and threw the pack on the table. “I heard he walked out. But to hear her tell it, it was she who canned him . Listen to this new guy. He’s good. Don’t you think, Juliana?”
Juliana listened a few moments. “Yes. What’s his name?”
“Walter? Now, what did he say his last name was? Nice kid. I talked to him a few nights ago. Walter …?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Juliana said.
“Yes, it does. Names are important. How would you like it if someone said that about your name? It was a strange one. Lib … Liber … Liber … ACE. I’m probably pronouncing it wrong.”
“Well, he might have a future in this business.”
“Just because Richard couldn’t set up anything in a big club for you in LA doesn’t mean you’re finished. He’s in the army. He’s limited in what he can do, but when the war’s over—”
“You should’ve heard Spivy hinting that I’m finished and Tallu backing her up.”
“You know, Julie, some entertainers are benefiting from this war. Take for instance Gladys Bentley out in LA.”
“No, Shirl.”
“Gladys’s career was almost over a few years before the war, but now she’s going great guns. I heard she’s going to record some of her songs for Excelsior.”
