All the Beautiful Girls
Page 32
She drained the last of her coffee and set the mug on the step beside her. This weekend was the party at Jack and the Aviator’s, in celebration of their tenth anniversary. Vivid was leaving Wild!, her Vegas dress boutique, in competent hands so that she could come for a week-long visit, and Rose was driving out with Vivid, bringing her twin three-year-old boys. Dee was flying in from Oregon with the husband none of them had yet met, and Jack was in seventh heaven, wholly consumed by the marvelous press of preparations. He called practically every night to tell her of changes he’d made to the menu or decorations. Last night, he’d proposed individualized marzipan sculptures for each guest. Lily could easily imagine the Aviator’s patient, put-upon expression.
Sloane had made Jack and the Aviator a card, since store-bought cards didn’t celebrate the anniversary of two grandfathers, and Lily sewed rich, satiny vests for each man. Jack’s had pearl buttons and was made of a midnight-blue brocade patterned with white cranes in flight. For the Aviator, Lily had chosen a conservative emerald-green material with a pronounced basket weave, and she’d found black, leather-clad buttons to give it a subtle zip. Sloane threaded plastic beads that looked like throat lozenges onto lengths of red yarn for each of her grandfathers, and Lily knew that the Aviator would wear Sloane’s bracelet proudly.
Lily stood, opened the screen door, and paused, looking into their cozy dollhouse home. Floating in one corner of the living room ceiling were angel’s wings Lily had made of papier-mâché and white feathers. They were a firm reminder of the power of guardian angels—of the human variety.
Lily rinsed her mug and set it in the sink. Despite all of her uncertainty about her future, she felt a steady sense of peace. Peace came from this home, her home. A home filled with Sloane’s effervescence and full-throated potential. A home that held the sheer beauty of the parts of Sloane that were so clearly Lily, unscathed.
The summer after my father’s death, my brave, adventurous mother loaded her four children into our station wagon and drove us all from New Mexico to California. It was 1966, I was ten years old, and we stopped for the night in Las Vegas. I recall being far more enamored of the motel’s cute kitchenette and our decadent TV dinners than I was of the towering neon displays we saw while exploring the Strip, our heads tilted up and up and up toward the grandeur of those immense billboards of light. Still, my little-girl’s heart knew I was in the land of true glamour—of feather-clad dancers and crooning singers, of fast-paced comedy routines and sophisticated celebrities. Something about that oasis of money, of titillation and sin, of fame and heat, stayed with me—still remains with me.
When I set out to tell Lily and Ruby’s story, I wanted to explore what are, for me, some of the more intriguing puzzles of life. Which childhood events alter the way we see the world? What is “family,” and how do we navigate the limits of those into which we’re born? How do we create the groups of people who support us through life? Finally—and by no means least of all—how does our culture see the lives and bodies of women? Have things changed for the better? Or at all?
That now vanished, classic Vegas seemed such a fitting setting in which to pose these questions. After all, although arguably the culture of Las Vegas allowed for greater social freedom (it was, after all, Sin City), the Strip was essentially a movie set, all façade.
The more I worked on this novel, the more I became aware of the contrast between what happened in Vegas and what was happening in the rest of the country at the time—the Vietnam War, civil rights protests, the growing women’s movement. The city seemed a microcosm of an America so obviously in flux: the growing divide between the values of an outgoing generation and those of the up-and-coming youth. There was Sammy Davis, Jr., dancing on the stage every night, but when he entered and exited the theater, he was forced to use the kitchen door. This was not the real world. It could not be the real world and still promise escape, both for its tourists and for its very own performers.
The most iconic Vegas performer, the showgirl, seemed to me the ideal figure to illuminate issues surrounding women’s bodies—how they’re simultaneously idolized and exploited, celebrated and taken for granted. Lily/Ruby also provided me with a way to write honestly about sexuality, that secret ignominy of a woman’s life. Her fears about the accuracy of her internal compass of love. Her fears about men, about how to know which ones can be trusted and which should be avoided. I let this smart, ambitious heroine grapple with the question my friends and I have long discussed: What leads us to the choices we make in love?
It was important to me to explore love and attraction in many forms. The Aviator and Jack are born of two men I loved dearly, who could never reveal their feelings for each other, except within their closest circle of friends. I remember the surprise on their faces when they realized I knew their secret and nevertheless accepted them, loved them still and always. I very much wanted to honor them. I thought about what it would be like to be unable even to answer a telephone in your own home, for fear of unveiling what was considered sick and perverted behavior. I wanted readers to know that the military used to prosecute men in homosexual relationships.
A great deal of research went into this novel. I read numerous books on the history of Las Vegas, as well as biographies of famous figures who passed through the town. I created a map of the Strip for myself because so many of the glorious casinos and hotels of yore were destroyed to make room for the new, and I wanted to be sure that Ruby traveled in the right direction when she went from one casino to another. The Internet also provided me with marvelous resources, including UNLV’s impressive digital collection of casino and showgirl memorabilia, right down to menus with prices and original design drawings for showgirl costumes. I altered some things to suit my fictional purposes. For example, Sammy Davis’s trip to Vietnam took place several years later than is depicted in this novel. At times, I got lost in the research; it was a fascinating culture and time, and the variety and numbers of celebrities who passed through Vegas were astounding.
Several years ago, I returned to Las Vegas to attend a conference on special education law. It was no longer the place it had been when I was a child, and I felt a sense of disappointment—that I’d not been the right age to enjoy classic Vegas. I’ve remedied that disappointment by using my imagination to travel back in time. Now, I’ve walked with Tom Jones and Sammy Davis, Jr. I’ve sat next to Sonny and Cher in an audience, and I’ve experienced what Ruby felt when she stepped onto a lavish stage set. I had a great time in the Vegas of my mind, plowing this landscape for all it offers—light and dark—to illuminate the life of Ruby/Lily, to find a terrain that suited the challenges of my indomitable heroine, and to confront what we believe about ourselves and the world we inhabit.
Although I no longer practice law, I still find the need to fight for a cause (or two, or three). In my fiction, my characters become my clients, and I am their advocate. After all, the issues that define the lives of Lily, Ruby, Vivid, Rose, Dee, Aunt Tate, the Aviator and Jack—they endure, for all of us. And if I can hope to accomplish anything, it’s to create a more expansive sense of justice and to urge understanding.
ALSO BY ELIZABETH J. CHURCH
The Atomic Weight of Love
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ELIZABETH J. CHURCH is the author of The Atomic Weight of Love, a #1 Indie Next List selection and Target Club Pick that was shortlisted by the ABA Indies Choice Book Awards for adult debut book of the year and the Reading the West Book Awards for best adult fiction. All the Beautiful Girls is her second novel. Church lives in northern New Mexico.
Find Elizabeth J. Church on Facebook.
Twitter: @ElizJChurch
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