Bachelor Girl

by Kim van Alkemade

  Whatever our dates meant, though, I still needed to get ready for tonight’s. I went backstage to find the wardrobe mistress. Racks of hanging costumes muffled my voice as I called for her. “Mrs. Harshman, are you in here?”

  She emerged with a pincushion on her wrist and a measuring tape around her neck. I often wondered what mixing of the races had produced her freckled complexion, a bright bronze that lent a hint of red to her braided hair. Her talent and competence certainly gave the lie to those eugenicists who ranted against mongrelization. “Hello, Miss Winthrope. I was just about to leave for the day. I mended that rip in Oberon’s trousers and reattached the tail to the donkey costume. I’ll pack everything away after closing night. We’re not likely to need Elizabethan gowns again until next summer, are we?”

  “Maybe next summer the Shakespeare troupe will bring their own costumes.”

  “Oh, they did, Miss Winthrope, but a sadder assortment of shabby scraps you’ve never seen. You wouldn’t have wanted them on your stage in those rags. That’s why Mr. Martin always insisted we maintain our own wardrobe.”

  “It’s lucky for me that we do. Do you have anything I could borrow for tonight?”

  Her wrinkles deepened as she smiled. “That dress you ordered from Gimbels for the new play arrived this morning. I haven’t even had time to sew the Playhouse’s label into the seam.”

  I stepped behind a screen to change into the frock, a sheath of crimson satin that cost more than my weekly salary. Mrs. Harshman fussed with the hem as I admired myself in a mirror. “Sometimes I feel guilty for taking advantage of our wardrobe this way.”

  “You shouldn’t, Miss Winthrope, not as hard as you work to keep us all in jobs. But speaking of guilty, did you hear?” She peeked her head into the hallway to be sure no one was listening. “That doctor whose name I gave you? He’s been arrested.”

  A cramp clutched at my gut. “Will we be in trouble, do you think?”

  “Oh, he’s never heard of me, and you used a false name, didn’t you? Then we can breathe easy.”

  Back when I realized the trouble I was in, I’d gone to Mrs. Harshman. As dresser to all the actresses, I figured she’d know better than anyone when someone’s belly was beginning to swell. She’d passed along the name of a doctor who’d fixed things for another girl, apparently without injury. It was my bad luck that his skills had deserted him by the time he got to me. Relieved to know he wouldn’t be damaging any other women, I thanked her for the dress and stepped into the hallway.

  “Oh, wait a minute.” She pinched my sleeve to hold me in place. “Remember when you asked me if I knew anything about Harry Frazee?”

  I’d forgotten, actually. The day-to-day demands of being a theater manager had driven Jake’s one request from my mind. “Have you heard something?”

  Mrs. Harshman pulled me back into the stuffy wardrobe room and lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. Discussing abortionists was one thing; gossip about one of Broadway’s most revered producers was quite another. I listened, our heads bent together, as she told a secondhand tale. I thanked her for the intelligence, though I doubted the rumors she’d repeated would do Jake any good.

  I found Albert waiting for me on a bench in the lobby, smoking a cigarette and reading the paper. In profile, his features were indistinct: his nose a bit too short to be aquiline, his chin too round to be considered strong. But when he turned toward me, his smile lit up a face in which every feature was perfectly proportioned. He said hello then looked me up and down. “Is that a new dress?”

  “It is new, but it’s not mine, I’m afraid. If you promise not to tell, I’ll make a confession. I borrowed it from wardrobe. Next time you see this dress it’ll be on the stage.”

  He seemed amused. “Borrowing a dress hardly counts as a sin. Besides, I don’t believe in any of that. Are you ready?”

  “We can leave as soon as Richard gets here.”

  “How’s he doing? It must be hard for him, demoted to ticket taker after owning the whole theater.”

  I’d thought so, too, when Richard Martin had come into the Olde Playhouse to offer his services. A month in Montauk had improved his health, he said. Now that he was relieved of the worries of management, all he wanted was to keep his toe in the theatrical world. How could I refuse? With Miss Johnson handling the books and Richard taking tickets, I saw now it took three people to do the job he had been doing by himself all those years. I was saying as much to Albert when Richard came in, his steps a bit tentative but his face cheerful, glasses swinging, as usual, from the chain around his neck.

  The maître d’ welcomed me and Albert like returning family, the little place on Eighth Avenue where we’d shared our first meal having become our regular spot. Once our antipasto had been served and the violinist had gone to serenade another table, I asked what he thought about the idea of Jake providing the money to pay for the installation of the new seats. He asked how much I’d need. I told him five hundred would cover it.

  “That’s not so bad, Helen. He just paid twice that for an autographed edition of Bret Harte novels. Seats for an entire theater ought to be worth as much as a set of books.”

  After our waiter had refilled the wineglasses and gathered our antipasto plates, I shifted my chair closer to Albert’s. “I heard something about Harry Frazee today.”

  “Really? I’ve been looking into the man for months. Tell me, what have you got?”

  “Mrs. Frazee is suing him for divorce. She’s asking for alimony and custody of their son.”

  Albert looked skeptical. “I haven’t heard anything about this. When were the legal papers filed?”

  “That’s the thing, Albert. They haven’t been filed yet, but I heard they were delivered to his office on Broadway a week ago.”

  “And you believe it?”

  I dropped my voice to a whisper. “I heard it from the wardrobe mistress. Her cousin works for Elizabeth Nelson, the actress. Apparently, Frazee’s been dating Elizabeth since she was a teenager.”

  “His philandering isn’t exactly news.” Albert propped his elbows on the table. “Why would his wife sue him for divorce now?”

  “Frazee’s notorious, has been for years, but now he’s gone and bought Elizabeth a house out in Great Neck. I guess that was the final straw for Mrs. Frazee.”

  The waiter returned with fettuccini fragrant with basil and tomatoes, grating Parmesan over our plates before backing away. “If she’s suing him for alimony she’ll want a complete accounting of his finances,” Albert said. “He won’t like that. The Colonel says wealthy men are either worth more than they let on or only half as rich as they appear.”

  I twirled the pasta around my fork. “Do you think Jake will be interested?”

  “I think he will, Helen. I’ll tell him about it on Monday at the Polo Grounds.”

  Pleased with his reaction to my news, I lifted my wineglass. “Last game of the season, isn’t it? Rex said they’re ending early this year.”

  “The war’s taken a toll on baseball as much as anything. Seems like half the players are off fighting in France, and half the spectators, too.”

  The juxtaposition of war and baseball jogged my memory. “Did you ever get a postcard from that soldier we met at the ballpark, what was his name?”

  The wine made Albert’s face flush. “King Arthur. No, I never did. Did you?”

  I shook my head. “I hope he’s okay.”

  “I haven’t seen his name listed. What do you hear from Clarence Weldon?”

  “He writes his mother that he’s fine, but I worry he’s lying to protect her.” He was protecting me, too, I thought. In the letters he sent me, he wrote little about the fighting. Instead, he described the farms and fields of the French countryside, the taste of cheese cured in a cave, the wine that flowed like water. It was Clarence’s father who told me the 369th had been attached to the French army because our own troops refused to fight beside Negro soldiers. “You’d think if there was one thing that would
bring free men together, it would be battling a common enemy.”

  “The black man in America has been fighting for his rights here at home a lot longer than the United States has been fighting the Germans.” Albert reminded me of Clarence when he talked like that, and no wonder—turned out he’d taken a subscription to The Crisis. The waiter exchanged our wineglasses for tiny cups of espresso as the violinist attempted a Vivaldi sonata. Our conversation turned to the progress of the amendment. Fourteen states had ratified so far and none had refused. Albert told me Jake was having his brewmasters perfect a beer low in alcohol in case Prohibition actually passed.

  Out on the sidewalk, Albert checked his wristwatch. “Look how long we lingered over dinner. Do you mind if we skip the movie tonight? I promised to meet up with my friends downtown.”

  I’d been looking forward to seeing Douglas Fairbanks in Bound in Morocco, but what could I say? At least Albert didn’t offer a false excuse. As he walked me home, my hand tucked into his elbow, he cleared his throat nervously. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you.”

  “What’s that?” Anxiety sped up my heartbeat. Could he be breaking things off with me? But there was nothing to break off, I reminded myself. I hoped Jake wasn’t transferring him to another account. Assigning Albert to be my liaison had been as much of a gift as making me manager of the Playhouse.

  “I’m moving tomorrow.”

  “Moving? What happened, did you break the rules at your rooming house?”

  “No, it’s just too far away. You remember Felix Stern, from the orphanage?” I thought his business with Mr. Stern had come to a conclusion months ago, but no, Albert said, they’d stayed in touch. An apartment had opened up in his building, a brownstone on the Upper West Side across the park from the brewery. “Here, I wrote down my new telephone number for you.”

  I turned the card he’d given me over in my hand. “Perhaps I could help you decorate?”

  “It comes furnished, but yes, I’ll have you up. The tenants are all men, but women are welcome to visit.”

  “That’ll be nice.” I liked the idea of spending time at home with Albert. I couldn’t very well have him over to my place, not with Rex and my mother there. Though I was chipping away at my debt to her, it would be a while yet before I could afford my own apartment like a true Bachelor Girl. But what then? I didn’t have any domestic skills with which to impress him. I remembered Jake’s quote about a man not needing a wife if he had a butler, a cook, and a laundress. I couldn’t even do those things for myself, let alone for a husband. If anything, I was more likely to need a wife than to become one. The idea amused me until I remembered the most important way in which I’d be useless as a wife. Curiously, Jake hadn’t thought to list children as a benefit of matrimony. I guessed he’d never wanted them. But Albert would, someday.

  I was so lost in my thoughts I was surprised to look up and find we’d arrived at my building. Albert walked me into the lobby before kissing my cheek good night. “I’ll let you know what the Colonel says about the money for the seats.”

  “Thank you, Albert. Oh, I almost forgot. I meant to invite you to the opening of our new play.” The actors wanted to avoid the bad luck of Friday the thirteenth, I explained, so the opening was planned for the fourteenth of September.

  He smiled, but there was a twist to his expression I couldn’t quite place. “I can’t on Saturday, Helen. Friday’s our night. How about I come to the dress rehearsal instead?”

  Chapter 20

  I felt bad about turning down Helen’s invitation, but my Saturday nights were sacred to Felix—not even a new song in Jack’s show or a party at Paul’s could tempt me away. It was our best night together, with all of Sunday morning to lounge before he went off to his trustees meeting at the orphanage. But that long commute between the brownstone and the Village stole hours that should have been ours. When the opportunity arose, Felix convinced me that taking an apartment in his building was a chance we couldn’t afford to pass up. It was the attic apartment that had been vacated, but Felix had persuaded his neighbor on the second floor to move upstairs so I could have the one adjacent to his. We had found, in the back of Felix’s bedroom closet, a door from before the house had been remodeled into rentals. It was sealed shut but we had plans to pry out the nails so we could come and go without ever stepping into the hallway. “As cozy as a married couple,” Paul teased when I explained it to him. Beneath his sarcastic tone, I heard envy in his voice. Though his benefactor often stayed late into the night at their town house on Waverly Place, he always went home to his wife before morning.

  Paul and Jack insisted on throwing me a going-away party. I told them not to be silly—I’d still be in Manhattan, after all—but they said once I left the Village it would never be the same. After dinner with Helen, I met up with everyone at Antonio’s, where Toni stood me for drinks and Edith brought out a cake and Jacqueline serenaded me from the stage. Friday night turned into Saturday morning before Paul and Jack and I stumbled back to my room for a nightcap. They collapsed into the armchairs while I ended up backward in bed, my feet on the pillow. It was nearly noon before we rose reluctantly, hungover and fumbling for cigarettes.

  It didn’t take much of an effort to pack up my few things. Emptying my dresser drawers, I came across that button from King’s uniform. I considered leaving it behind—such a silly little keepsake—but in the end I dropped it into the box that held my cuff links and tie clips, put the box in my trunk, and latched it shut.

  A taxi driver helped me wrestle the trunk down Mrs. Santalucia’s stairs and into the back of his cab. “Good luck to you, Mr. Kramer,” she said, standing ready with a mop to clean out my room for the next tenant. I wondered if it would be as much of a refuge for him as it had been for me. It had seemed a solitary affliction I suffered until Greenwich Village showed me we were multitude. Living there made me part of a family whose kinship depended not on shared blood but on the mutual celebration of our secret selves. Living with Felix, I’d be trading the embrace of an entire community for the tight circle of one man’s arms.

  The cab started up Broadway. I covered my ears against the chaos through Times Square, my head throbbing with every screech of a streetcar and honk of a horn. When we pulled up to the brownstone, the driver whistled. “Moving up in the world, ain’t you, mister?” We carried my trunk upstairs and I overtipped him, enjoying the sensation it gave me to be so free with a dollar.

  I spent the afternoon settling in (books on shelves, suits on hangers) then joined the others downstairs for cocktails. There was Felix’s friend the composer, who sat at the piano in the parlor whenever inspiration struck. The tenant who’d taken over the attic was a writer who made his living in advertising by day while pecking out poems on his typewriter at night. The longest resident was a Broadway character actor whose silk cravats and affected speech led the landlady to mistake him for a displaced English duke instead of an aging queen. It was he we had to thank for populating the building exclusively with queers, one tenant recommending the next until we inhabited all the apartments. The landlady, clueless, counted herself lucky to be renting to such a talented batch of bachelors.

  Though I easily engaged in conversation with my new neighbors, I knew we’d never become as close as I was to my friends in the Village. Here I was welcomed more for Felix’s sake than my own. Like him, they were intolerant of pansies and I had to be careful, as I relaxed with a cocktail, to keep my pinky finger from pointing to the sky.

  I went upstairs to wait for the late summer sun to set. My apartment was similar to Felix’s—same ornate moldings, same Victorian furniture, same elaborate chandelier—except that my windows faced the street instead of the garden. Despite the noise coming in through the open casements, I managed to doze off on the velvet sofa. It was dark when I felt the cold weight of steel against my collarbone. I opened my eyes to see Felix kneeling beside me, his face inches from mine, those lashes of his a mile long. He’d brought me a housewar
ming present: on my chest rested a hammer with which we’d soon pry open the door that separated us. His lips moved into a warm smile. “Welcome home, Albert.” I reached to embrace him, the head of the hammer digging into my skin. I lifted it from my chest and set it on the floor as Felix sat back on his heels to pull off his jacket. Greedy for me after the hours apart, he stole the breath from my lungs with his kisses.

  It was a novelty preparing a proper Sunday breakfast in my own apartment. Fortunately, the simple lessons I’d learned from my grandmother’s cook came back to me and I managed a decent plate of fried eggs and tomatoes. Felix sat across from me, his dressing gown tied loosely over his pajamas, dipping buttered bread into runny yolks as I poured coffee from my new percolator. It occurred to me I hadn’t enjoyed such a domestic moment since childhood. From boarding school to college to Mrs. Santalucia’s house, the rooms in which I slept had always been separated from the dining halls or cafeterias where I ate.

  I cleared the breakfast dishes so Felix could spread his note cards across the table. “Are you still working on your presentation?” I asked, warming up his coffee.

  “Just reviewing the numbers.”

  I planted a kiss on top of his head. “I’m sure it will go well.”

  He caught my hand and held it. “Thanks to you.”

  Back in May, I’d been honest with the Colonel when I reported that the plans for the new orphanage were premature, but I’d propped up Felix’s case by assuring him the trustees were serious about selling. The Colonel still wouldn’t sign an option, but he had hired a surveyor to make a preliminary report on the Orphaned Hebrews Home. Though not a detailed plan, the report gave the Colonel some numbers to work with, and I’d passed along the figures to Felix. At their meeting today, he’d be proposing a capital campaign to fund construction of the new cottage homes. I pictured him cajoling the trustees to approve his proposal, fueled by his fervor for the project and backed with facts and figures I’d provided. If anyone could spur them to open their wallets, it was Felix. Though I still had my doubts about the deal, I knew how much the Colonel wanted a stadium, and how much Felix wanted to give the children in the orphanage a better life. I told myself I was helping each of them achieve their ambitions by bridging the gap between them.