All the Beautiful Girls

by Elizabeth J. Church

  “He took care of us, when my mother died. She had the stomach cancer,” he said, his palm flat against Ruby’s belly.

  “How old were you? When your mother died—”

  “Eight yearsold.” He pressed his thumb into her belly button.

  “So young.” She still couldn’t bring herself to tell him of her eight-year-old self, wrapped in a blanket in the backseat of her parents’ car. And he didn’t ask.

  Finally, Javier looked from her body to Ruby’s eyes. “Without her, he was sad and angry.”

  “Did he hurt you?”

  “Sí.”

  She wasn’t sure she should press him, but maybe this was part of the answer she’d been seeking, the genesis of Javier’s spontaneous-combustion furor. “Did he hit you?”

  “Sí. He was always sorry, always sad. After.”

  “But he lost control?”

  Javier nodded. “Then he would buy us a treat. I don’t know what you call it. Ice, ground very small, with lemon or cherry syrup. Sometimes mango.”

  She felt compassion overtake her. It all made such abundant sense. Their cells must sing choruses of understanding to each other—two ravaged children grown to adulthood.

  “I will be a good father to my children. I will love them as much as my father loves me—more—but I will never hurt them. Not like what I had,” he vowed. “You need to know that, my Ruby. I am done with that. Nunca más, mi amor.”

  “Nunca más,” Ruby repeated, feeling hope and faith twining, a sturdy vine that would let her scale the roughest wall. She’d climb to joy, to a future thick with promise.

  * * *

  —

  THE NEXT MORNING, Ruby stood in the hotel bathroom listening to the faucet’s drip. She was wavering. She wanted, for once in her life, to make a leap of faith. And so, after taking a deep breath, she used her fingernail scissors to cut an open heart into the center of her diaphragm.

  “Is true?” Javier asked, grinning hugely. “You will do it? Live with me, have babies with me, come to be here in this place?” He looked down at the ruined diaphragm cupped in his hands, and when he looked back up at her, she could see tears in his eyes. “You still love me?” he asked, needlessly.

  She thought about saying, Yes, but you’d better keep your promises, but she didn’t. She didn’t want to spoil the moment. She didn’t want to spoil their future. No, she’d taken that leap, and now she intended to let go of the past, to see everything with eyes that dared to believe.

  * * *

  —

  “I DIDN’T KNOW how to tell you, and so I kept putting it off,” Ruby said, seated in the shade of an umbrella by the apartment pool with Dee, Vivid, and Rose. Rose’s wedding was in two days, and they were having one last get-together before Rose moved into married life.

  The silence was decidedly uncomfortable. Vivid tapped a spoon on the tabletop, and Dee escaped to get more ice for the pitcher of margaritas. Rose was the only one who held her ground, refusing to look away from Ruby.

  “It’s like you’re an addict or something,” Rose said. “I mean, Jesus, Ruby. What does it take? Does he have to put you in the hospital? Rob you blind?”

  Vivid set down the spoon and picked up a fork. “So, let me get this straight,” she said. “Your plan is to quit your job, move to San Francisco, and live in some hovel with a complete and total asshole.”

  “He’s not—” Ruby began, but Vivid spoke over her.

  “Don’t forget. I know,” she said, her jaw clenched. “That kind of bullshit behavior does not go away. Poof!” She raised a hand, looked up as if she could see a puff of smoke.

  “He’s passionate. We both are. We’re like Taylor and Burton,” Ruby said, desperate to convince her audience.

  “Taylor and Burton?” Dee was back with the ice. “You’re comparing yourself to Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton?”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Vivid said. “This is your logic? Really?”

  “They have a tempestuous kind of love,” Ruby said. “They have their ups and downs, their dramas. Their breakups and their make-ups.”

  “So you think you and Javier are what—Antony and Cleopatra?” Dee asked.

  “At least Liz Taylor gets sixty-five-thousand-dollar necklaces for her pains,” Vivid said.

  “And she can just jet off to Monaco when she wants to escape.” Dee poured herself another margarita.

  “I hear she gives as good as she gets,” Rose said.

  Ruby stood, angrily. “I knew you wouldn’t understand,” she said. “But it doesn’t matter. I’m going with him.”

  “Then get ready,” Vivid said, pinning Ruby with her gaze. She pushed the prongs of the fork into the tender skin of her own forearm. “He’ll start like this.” She pushed harder, deepened the indentations. “He’ll push until he makes you bleed. And one day”—she paused—“he’ll kill you.”

  “Oh, no!” Rose said, disbelieving.

  “Oh, come on, Vivid,” Dee said.

  “I already tried breaking this particular horse the gentle way.” Vivid set the fork down and patted it as if to make it stay in place. “It didn’t work,” she said, looking meaningfully at Ruby. “And so now I’m changing tack.”

  “I’m sorry you don’t understand,” Ruby managed before turning away and walking back to her apartment. She was breathing fast and could feel the adrenaline threading through her veins. They didn’t understand. She knew they wouldn’t. Vivid was exaggerating what she’d seen with Javier—pure drama. He’d barely hurt her. And Vivid hadn’t seen Javier’s behavior in San Francisco. He’d been a different person, away from the stresses of his life in Vegas. None of them had seen the promise in his eyes, how chagrined he was by his previous poor behavior, how much her “yes” had meant to him. They didn’t understand devotion, what it was like to believe in another person. Vivid, in particular, with her admitted distrust, her purposefully shallow love affairs—she could never comprehend real love.

  * * *

  —

  THEY ALL BEHAVED politely, if somewhat distantly, at Rose’s wedding. And then, on the following Monday, Ruby found a telephone message waiting for her at the casino. It was from Sammy Davis, Jr. Shaking with excitement, she called the number, and his manager answered. At long last, the week-long trip to entertain the troops was set. They’d leave for Vietnam on July 29—in just over three weeks. The manager had already spoken with Bob Christianson, who was willing to give Ruby time off in exchange for publicity photos the Dunes could use to take full advantage of Ruby’s goodwill gesture. All ten members of the troupe—Sammy and his wife, a four-piece band, three backup singers, and Ruby—would participate in the photo shoot. Was she still willing?

  “Yes!” she screamed into the phone, not caring one bit that she might sound like an overeager teenager. “God, yes!” she added.

  Davis had married for a third time, this time to Altovise Gore, who had worked as a dancer in London and on Broadway. With her permanently surprised eyebrows, her luscious lips and body, she was stunning. Altovise choreographed the shows, and two brief rehearsals were held at the Sands, where Davis performed. A USO officer also met with the troupe, telling them what they could expect in Vietnam. He kept using the word primitive, and Ruby thought that of course war-torn Vietnam would be a rough trip.

  Sammy and Altovise would be paid a hundred dollars a day; Ruby and all the others would receive twenty-five. The trifling pay hardly mattered. At last, at last, Ruby was contributing. She would be part of something that actually mattered, and heading to Vietnam was head and shoulders above a group of prima donna college students marching in circles with placards. Too, she knew that this adventure would serve as her perfect last hurrah before she retired as a showgirl.

  * * *

  —

  IN THE PAST, she’d inadvertently triggered his rage. This time, she w
ould control the situation. Ruby told Javier about Vietnam while they were standing in the checkout line at the grocery store, where he’d be less likely to cause a scene. She was right; Javier maintained his self-control. But only until they got to her Ghia and began fitting grocery bags beneath the hood.

  Ruby bumped into him as she jostled a bag on her hip. “Sorry,” she said.

  “Are you?”

  “Don’t start.” She tried to sound firm, in control.

  “You want that I be quiet? That I no embarrass you?”

  Ruby wedged in the last bag, reached up, and got ready to slam the hood.

  “Wait,” he said, gripping her wrist. “Not yet.” Javier reached into one of the bags and pulled out the carton of eggs.

  “What—” Ruby began.

  He removed an egg, balanced it in his palm. “You want go off and be with these other men. To shake your culo for them. These men in the jungle who have no seen a wooman for too long. You want to do this to my heart.” He slammed the egg onto the asphalt, and the yoke bled out. “That’s my heart.”

  She almost laughed. Throwing eggs? Really? Ruby tried to grab the carton, but he thrust it behind his back where she couldn’t reach it.

  “You want to go with this black man. Travel with him ten thousand miles. And his band, those other men.” He began nodding, convincing himself of his veracity. “That’s it. You want to go fuck these other men. What is you always say? Oh, yes. You want fuck your brains out. With black men with big dicks.”

  “Let’s get in the car,” Ruby said, aware that other shoppers were stopping to stare. “Javier, let’s talk about this privately.”

  “Oh,” he said with a mock grin. “Now she wants private. This wooman who shows the whole world her tits and her culo. She wants private,” he sneered.

  Ruby took out her car keys. She hated his childish high drama, but just now there was no point in trying to reason with him.

  She didn’t see it coming. The egg hit her squarely on the head. She felt it dripping, viscous and slow down her forehead, and she used the back of her hand to try to keep it from running into her eyes.

  He came around to her side of the car and began pelting her in the back with one egg after another. “Fuck you, Ruby!” he screamed. “Fuck you, you cunt!”

  She turned and faced him. She would do this differently, refuse to yell back. She would stay calm, and that would bring him under control. He’d quickly see that he was behaving like a child throwing a tantrum. “Your English is getting much better,” she said, rather pleased with her self-control.

  He’d run out of eggs, and that stalled him. Javier stood there, empty carton in hand.

  “Have you finished?” she asked, almost daring a smile. Over his shoulder, she saw a middle-aged man with black-plastic-framed eyeglasses gesture to ask if she needed help, and she shook her head no. “Javier?” she asked. “Shall we get in the car and go home now?”

  It took a moment, and then he looked at the empty egg carton as if it were some foreign object he could not for the life of him identify. She saw a shift in his eyes. He’d released his anger, and he seemed deflated, pacified.

  Ruby searched her purse and found a packet of tissues. She pulled out several and cleaned off the egg as best she could. When Javier touched her arm, she flinched.

  “Let me.” He took the tissues and cleaned the areas of her back she couldn’t reach.

  Slowly, she thought with satisfaction, she was learning how to manage him. This would take time, practice. She sighed with relief. He wasn’t stalking off, leaving her. He hadn’t hurt her. This time, he was swiftly conciliatory.

  Once they were in the car, he rolled down his window, and Ruby started the engine.

  “You knowed that saying?” Javier asked.

  “What?” Ruby moved the gearshift into reverse.

  “You can no make the omelet without first break the eggs.”

  “Ha!” Ruby let out a laugh. “Well, we’re fresh out of eggs, mi amor.”

  “Is true,” he said, placing his hand over hers on the gearshift. “No more eggs. And I am sorry, my Ruby.”

  From then on, she included him in her preparations, thinking it would help him adjust. It seemed to work. He went with her while she chose a long wig in her hair shade, and he helped her find small gifts for the soldiers—candy that wouldn’t melt in the heat, Oreo cookies, cigarette lighters, paperback mysteries, and a stack of the August 1970 issue of Playboy, featuring a pictorial on Myra Breckinridge, which had just come out.

  Bob Christianson gave her a box containing five hundred copies of her Dunes publicity photo so that she could autograph them and pass them out; she was to encourage the soldiers to come see her perform on a real stage, once they got back to the States. Ruby hadn’t yet told Bob of her retirement plans. That would all come later, when she had everything arranged.

  The night before she was to leave, Javier asked her to wear the new wig in bed, along with a red garter belt and thigh-high stockings he produced from the bottom drawer of the nightstand. And when she counted the Playboys before packing them in a duffel bag, there was one missing. She was glad of his small rebellion.

  “One week. That’s all,” she said, standing with Javier on the Vegas airstrip, inhaling jet fuel and watching shimmering waves of heat hover above the pavement. “Then we start our new lives.”

  “I be here. Siempre,” he promised, folding her into his arms for one last, strong embrace. “You don’t worry. And come back safe.”

  They flew in an army transport plane with box lunches balanced in their laps, and they stopped in Hawaii, Guam, and then finally Vietnam. Ruby had a headache, likely brought on by the rumble of the engines and the noxious smell of jet fuel, and she felt slightly nauseated. The band members sat together, Sammy and Altovise were huddled up, and Ruby sat with the backup singers—Darlene, Misty, and Yvonne. The singers were all nervous, jittery, and extremely unsure of themselves.

  Dozing off and on to the drone of the plane’s engines, she lost track of time, but well over twenty-four hours had passed by the time they at last landed at Tân Sơn Nhất, Saigon’s airport. As Ruby descended the ramp, she was hit by a heavy, sweet smell that lodged in her nasal passages. She immediately recognized it as decay, death. She didn’t really feel the heat until they were standing inside the claustrophobic makeshift customs building, but then she sensed how flushed she’d become. She felt dizzy, enervated. Uneasily, she answered a few questions posed by a surprisingly small, delicate Vietnamese officer. She swore she had no guns or knives, all the while thinking that everything—absolutely everything—seemed dirty, in need of paint and repair. Long trails of ants crawled up the wooden shack’s dirty white pillars.

  Their first meal was fried chicken. Sammy joked that they must have heard that black people love fried chicken, and he wondered if they’d be served watermelon for dessert. Ruby picked at her meal, as did Darlene—a big-hipped girl with startled eyes and severely bitten nails.

  They performed their first show within three hours of landing. Sammy wore a silk, thigh-length Nehru jacket in a pink-and-orange paisley print; a huge gold medallion bumped against his chest as he sang “You’ve Made Me So Very Happy.” He introduced Altovise, who sat with the bigwigs in the front row of the audience, and the crowd of thousands of soldiers cheered wildly when she stood. She thrust her fist in the air, and the black power salute was echoed by hundreds of black soldiers.

  Dressed in a white shell top that buttoned up the back, a single set of false eyelashes, a pair of sapphire-blue hot pants, and her long wig flowing nearly to the middle of her back, Ruby whirled and kicked and swayed her hips to “Lucretia MacEvil.” She and Sammy played off of each other, and he invited soldiers to come on stage to take turns dancing with Ruby. Darlene, along with Misty and Yvonne, sang backup and snapped their fingers, wiping sweat from their foreheads with ar
my-issue white handkerchiefs. Disoriented birds flew about the stage, and soldiers stood to take photos of Sammy in action.

  Movement revived Ruby, as did the contrast with her Vegas performances. The stage was small—not as small as many she’d perform on in the coming days—but it was not the grand expanse that she was used to. She loved the friendly informality, which let her interact with the band and Sammy, the other girls, and the audience in a more intimate way.

  She smiled at the sea of soldiers seated in waves of folding chairs, the men who hooted and whistled and called out for more, as well as the ones who made their way onto the stage to take her hand for a few moments, shyly, to twirl her. She felt a shared history with these men—a childhood of the Lone Ranger, Superman; Malt-O-Meal and Campbell’s soup TV commercials. They’d all grown up singing the Libby’s jingle on playgrounds in Kansas, Wisconsin, along the Eastern seaboard, and in the desolate, wintry plains of South Dakota. They shared the dashed hope of the Kennedys, the strict, disciplined parents whose worlds had been so severely shaped by the austerity of the Depression. They knew fractured innocence.

  As Ruby danced, the men answered with their enthusiasm. It was a fueled exchange. Back and forth. Back and forth. It was a conversation she never wanted to end.

  The men gave Sammy a fatigue jacket sewn with patches from different units. His finch’s body swam in the voluminous coat, which he wore proudly, with the sleeves rolled up. One of the men put a floppy boonie hat on Ruby and told her to keep it, said that he knew it would bring him good luck. He’d drawn on it in blue ballpoint ink: a peace symbol, a crude dove with an olive branch in its beak, and the name of his girlfriend, Chantelle.

  In the audience, she saw a Vietnamese girl, maybe eight or nine, incongruously seated in a row of men. One soldier held a frantic monkey on a leash in his lap. She saw crosses and dog tags. Some men were shirtless, wearing headbands to keep back long, decidedly unmilitary hair. And she saw bandages—wounded arms and legs, crutches, gauze covering a man’s head as if he were a mummy.