City of Girls

by Elizabeth Gilbert

  “He knows, too, Vivian. He’s gone home for the evening.”

  Everyone knew. So there was no hope of salvation in any direction.

  Olive went on, “But Anthony and Edna are the least of your worries right now, if I may say. You have a far bigger problem to contend with, Vivian. Stan has told us that you’ve been identified.”

  “Identified?”

  “Yes, identified. They know who you are, at the newspaper. Somebody at the nightclub recognized you. This means that your name—your full name—will be printed in Winchell’s column. My objective tonight is to stop that from happening.”

  Desperately, I looked at Peg—for what, I could not have said. Maybe I wanted comfort or guidance from my aunt. But Peg was leaning back on the couch with her eyes closed. I wanted to go shake her, and beg her to take care of me, to save me.

  “Can’t be stopped,” Peg slurred again.

  Stan Weinberg nodded in agreement solemnly. He didn’t look up from his hands, which were clasped over the hideously innocuous manila folder. He looked like a man who operated a funeral parlor, trying to keep his dignity and reserve as he was surrounded by a collapsing, grieving family.

  “We can’t stop Winchell from reporting on Arthur’s dalliance, no,” said Olive. “And of course he will gossip about Edna, because she’s a star. But Vivian is your niece, Peg. We cannot allow her name to be in the papers in a scandal like this. Her name is not necessary to the story. It would be ruinous for the poor girl’s life. If you would just call your people at the studio, Billy, and ask them to intervene . . .”

  “I’ve told you ten times already that the studio can’t do anything about this,” Billy said. “First of all, this is New York gossip, not Hollywood gossip. They don’t have that kind of clout over here. And even if they could fix it, I can’t play that card. Who do you want me to call? Zanuck himself? Wake him up at this hour, and say, ‘Hey, Darryl—can you get my wife’s niece out of trouble?’ I might need a favor of my own from Zanuck someday. So, no, I’ve got no pull here. Stop being such a mother hen, Olive. Let the chips fall. It’ll be ugly for a few weeks, but it will pass. It always does. Everyone will survive it. Just a little squib in the papers. What do you care?”

  “I’ll fix things, I promise,” I said, like an idiot.

  “Can’t be fixed,” said Billy. “And maybe for now you should keep your mouth shut. You’ve done enough damage for one night, girlie.”

  “Peg,” said Olive, walking over to the couch to shake my aunt awake. “Think. You must have an idea. You know people.”

  But Peg just repeated, “Can’t be stopped.”

  I found my way to a chair and sat down. I had done something very bad, and tomorrow it would be splashed across the gossip pages, and it could not be stopped. My family would know. My brother would know. Everyone I’d grown up with and gone to school with would know. All of New York City would know.

  As Olive had said: my life would be ruined.

  I hadn’t tended to my life very carefully thus far, to be sure, but I still cared about it enough that I didn’t want it ruined. No matter how recklessly I’d been behaving for the past year, I guess I’d always had a distant thought that someday I would probably clean myself up and become respectable again (that my “breeding” would kick in, as my brother had said). But this level of scandal, with this level of publicity, would preclude respectability forever.

  And then there was Edna. She already knew. Here came another wave of nausea.

  “How did Edna take it?” I dared to ask, in a hazardously shaky voice.

  Olive looked at me with something like pity, but did not answer.

  “How do you think she took it?” said Billy, who was not so pitying. “That woman’s tough as nails, but her heart is constructed of the more typically flimsy composite materials—so, yeah, she’s pretty broken up about it, Vivian. If it had been just one bimbo chomping at her husband’s face, she might have been able to handle it—but two? And one of those girls was you? So what do you think, Vivian? How do you think she feels?”

  I put my hands over my face.

  The best thing for me to do right now, I thought, would be to never have been born.

  “You’re taking an awfully self-righteous position on this, William,” I heard Olive say in a low, warning voice. “For a man with your particular history.”

  “Christ, how I hate that Winchell.” Billy ignored Olive’s comment. “And he hates me just as much. I think he would light a match to me if he thought he could get insurance money for it.”

  “Just call the studio, Billy,” Olive pleaded again. “Just call them and ask them to intervene. They can do anything.”

  “No the studio can’t do anything, Olive,” said Billy. “Not with something as red hot as this. This is 1941, not 1931. Nobody has that kind of weight anymore. Winchell’s got more power than the goddamn president. You and I can fight about this till next Christmas, but the answer will always be the same—I can’t do anything to help, and the studio can’t do anything to help, either.”

  “Can’t be stopped,” said Peg again, and sighed—a deep, sickly sigh.

  I rocked in the chair with my eyes closed, nauseated by self-disgust and alcohol.

  Minutes passed, I guess. They always do.

  When next I looked up, Olive was coming back into the room wearing her coat and hat and carrying her purse. I suppose she’d stepped out for a moment, but I hadn’t taken notice. Stan Weinberg had gone, leaving his horrible news behind like a stench. Peg was still slumped on the couch with her head knocked back against the upholstery, muttering something insensible every once in a while.

  “Vivian,” said Olive, “I need you to go change into something more modest. Do it quickly, please. Put on one of those flowery dresses you brought with you from Clinton. And get yourself a coat and a hat. It’s cold out there. We’re going out. I don’t know when we’ll be back.”

  “We’re going out?” Christ, would this night of horrors never end?

  “We’re going to the Stork Club. I’m going to find Walter Winchell and talk to him about this myself.”

  Billy laughed. “Olive’s going to the Stork Club! To demand an audience with the great Winchell! Ain’t that a tickle! I didn’t know you’d ever heard of the Stork Club, Olive! I would’ve guessed you thought it was a maternity ward!”

  Olive ignored this, other than to say, “Don’t let Peg drink any more tonight, Billy, please. We will need her clearheadedness to help us manage all this mess, just as soon as we can get her back to her senses.”

  “She can’t drink any more,” exclaimed Billy, waving to his wife’s prostrate form. “Look at her!”

  “Vivian, hurry,” said Olive. “Go get ready. Remember—you are a modest girl, so dress like one. And tidy up your hair while you’re in there. Take off some of that makeup, too. Clean up as best you can. And wash your hands with a generous amount of soap. You smell like a brothel, and that won’t do.”

  It’s incredible to me, Angela, to realize that so many people these days have forgotten Walter Winchell’s name. He was once the most powerful man in American media, and that made him one of the most powerful men in the world. He wrote about the rich and famous, to be sure, but he was just as rich and famous as they were. (More, in most cases.) He was loved by his audience and feared by his prey. He built up and tore down other people’s reputations at will—like a kid toying about with sandcastles. Some even claimed that Winchell was the reason FDR got reelected—because Winchell (who was passionate about America joining the war and defeating Hitler) outright commanded his followers to vote for Roosevelt. And millions obeyed.

  Winchell had been famous for a long time by doing nothing more than selling dirt on people, and for being a pretty snappy writer. My grandmother and I used to read his columns together, of course. We hung on his every word. He knew everything about everyone. He had tentacles everywhere.

  Back in 1941, the Stork Club was essentially Winchell’s office. The
whole world knew this. I certainly knew it because I’d seen him there dozens of times when I was out on the town with Celia. I would see him holding court from the throne that was always reserved for him: Table 50. He could be found there every night between 11:00 P.M. and 5:00 A.M. This is where he did his dirty work. This is where the denizens of his kingdom would come slithering forth like Kublai Khan’s ambassadors, from every corner of the empire—to ask for favors, or to bring him the gossip he needed to feed the monstrous belly of his newspaper column.

  Winchell liked to be around pretty showgirls (who doesn’t?), so Celia had sat at his table a few times. He knew her by name. They danced together often—I’d seen it. (No matter what else Billy said about him, the man was a good dancer.) But despite all the nights I’d been at the Stork, I’d never dared to go sit at Winchell’s table myself. For one thing, I wasn’t a showgirl, an actress, or an heiress, so I wouldn’t have been of interest to him. For another thing, the man scared me to death—and I didn’t even have a reason back then to be scared of him.

  Well, I had a reason now.

  Olive and I didn’t talk in the cab. I was too consumed by fear and shame to make conversation, and she was never one for casual chitchat. I will say that her demeanor toward me was not degrading. She was not giving me a dose of schoolmarm disapproval—although she had cause. No, Olive’s attitude that night was all business. She was a woman on a mission, and her focus was solely upon the task at hand. If I’d had my wits about me, I might have been touched and amazed that it was Olive—not Peg, or even Billy—who was putting her neck on the line for me. But I was too distraught to register this act of grace. All I could feel was doom.

  The only thing Olive said to me as we were getting out of the taxi was, “I don’t want you saying a word to Winchell. Not a word. Be pretty and be quiet. That’s your only task. Follow me.”

  When we reached the entrance to the Stork, we were stopped by two doormen whom I knew well. James and Nick. They knew me, too, although they didn’t realize it right away. They knew me as a glamour girl who was always hanging around Celia Ray, and that’s not even close to how I looked this evening. I wasn’t dressed to go dancing at the Stork. I wasn’t wearing an evening gown or furs, or jewels that I’d borrowed from Celia. On the contrary—as per Olive’s directions for sartorial modesty, which, thankfully, I’d had the good sense to obey—I was wearing the same simple frock I’d worn on the train to New York City all those many months ago. And I had on my good school coat. My face was scrubbed clean of makeup. I probably looked about fifteen years old.

  What’s more, I was keeping a different sort of company that night (to say the least) than what the doormen were used to. Instead of being on the arm of the luscious showgirl Celia Ray, I was in the company of one Miss Olive Thompson—a dour lady in steel-rimmed spectacles and an old brown overcoat. She looked like a school librarian. She looked like a school librarian’s mother. We certainly did not look like the sort of guests who would elevate the tone of a place like the Stork, and so both James and Nick put up their hands to stop us, just as Olive was marching in.

  “We need to see Mr. Winchell, please,” she announced, briskly. “It’s rather an emergency.”

  “I’m sorry, madam, but the nightclub is full, and we are not accepting any more guests for the evening.”

  He was lying, of course. If Celia and I had been trying to get in—dressed in all our glory—those doors would have flung open so fast they might have lost their hinges.

  “Is Mr. Sherman Billingsley here this evening?” Olive asked, undeterred.

  The doormen exchanged glances. What did this homely librarian know of Sherman Billingsley, the club’s owner?

  Taking advantage of their hesitation, Olive pressed on.

  “Please tell Mr. Billingsley that the manager of the Lily Playhouse has come to speak with Mr. Winchell, and that it’s a grave emergency. Tell him that I come on behalf of his good friend Peg Buell. We haven’t much time. It’s regarding the potential publication of these photographs.”

  Olive reached into her unassuming plaid satchel and pulled out the ruination of my life—that manila folder. She handed it to the doormen. This was a bold tactic, but desperate times call for desperate measures. Nick took the folder, opened it, looked at the photos, and let out a low whistle. Then he looked from the photos to me, and back to the photos. Something changed in his face. Now he knew me.

  He gave me a raised eyebrow and a lewd grin. He said, “We haven’t seen you around here in a while, Vivian. But now I see why. I guess you’ve been busy, huh?”

  I seared in shame—while at the same time understanding: This is just the beginning of it.

  “I will ask you to take care with how you speak to my niece, sir,” said Olive, in a voice so steely it could have drilled a hole through a bank safe.

  My niece?

  Since when did Olive call me her niece?

  Nick apologized, cowed. But Olive wasn’t done. She said, “Young man, you can either bring us to see Mr. Billingsley—who will not appreciate your rude treatment of two people he essentially considers to be family members—or you can bring us directly to Mr. Winchell’s table. You will do one, or you will do the other, but I will not be leaving. My suggestion is that you bring us directly to Mr. Winchell’s table because that’s where I’ll be ending up this evening—regardless of what it takes me to get there, or who has to lose their job along the way for trying to stop me.”

  It’s amazing how frightened young men will always be of dowdy, middle-aged women with stern voices—but it’s true: they are terrified of them. (Too much like their own mothers, or nuns, or Sunday-school teachers, I suppose. The trauma from those old scoldings and beatings must run very deep.)

  James and Nick exchanged a glance, looked at Olive one more time, and then decided as one: Give the old bird whatever she wants.

  We were delivered straight to Mr. Winchell’s table.

  Olive sat down with the great man, but gestured at me to remain standing behind her. It was as though she were using her squatty little body as a shield between me and the world’s most dangerous newspaperman. Or maybe she just wanted to put me at a far enough remove from the conversation that I wouldn’t speak and ruin her strategy.

  She pushed Winchell’s ashtray aside and placed the folder in front of him. “I’ve come to discuss these.”

  Winchell opened the folder and fanned out the photos in front of him. For the first time, I could see the photos—though I wasn’t close enough to make out the details. But there it was. Two girls and a man, all entwined in each other. You didn’t need the details to understand what was going on.

  He shrugged. “I’ve seen these. Already bought them. Can’t help you.”

  “I know,” said Olive. “I understand you’ll be publishing them tomorrow in the afternoon edition.”

  “Say, lady, who the hell are you, anyhow?”

  “My name is Olive Thompson. I’m the manager of the Lily Playhouse.”

  You could see the abacus of his mind doing a quick calculation, and then he landed on it. “That dump where City of Girls is playing,” he said, lighting a new cigarette off the still-burning ember of his last one.

  “That’s correct,” confirmed Olive. (She took no issue with the word “dump” as applied to our theater—though, honestly, who could have debated it?)

  “It’s a good show,” Winchell said. “I gave it a rave.”

  He seemed to want credit for this, but Olive wasn’t the sort of woman to hand out free credit—not even in this situation, when she was essentially coming before Winchell on bended knee.

  “Who’s the little rabbit hiding behind you?” he asked.

  “She’s my niece.”

  So I guess we were sticking to that story.

  “A bit past her bedtime, ain’t it?” said Winchell, giving me the once-over.

  I’d never been this close to him before, and I didn’t like it one bit. He was a tall and hawkish man in his midfor
ties, with baby-smooth pink skin and a twitchy jaw. He was wearing a navy blue suit (pressed to lacerating creases), with a sky blue Oxford shirt, brown wingtips, and a snappy gray felt fedora. He was wealthy and powerful, and he looked wealthy and powerful. His hands never stopped fidgeting, but his eyes were disconcertingly still as he took me in. His was a predator’s stare. You might have said he was good-looking, if you could release your concerns about when he was going to eviscerate you.

  A moment later, though, he had dropped his gaze from me. I’d failed to keep his interest. He’d quickly browsed me and analyzed me—female, young, unconnected, inconsequential—and then dismissed me as useless to his needs.

  Olive tapped one of the photos in front of her. “The gentleman in these photographs is married to our star.”

  “I know exactly who that guy is, lady. Arthur Watson. Talentless sop. Dumb as a bag of hair. Better at chasing girls than he is at acting, by the looks of this evidence. And he’s gonna take one hell of a pasting from his wife when she sees these photos.”

  “She’s seen them already,” said Olive.

  Now Winchell was openly irritated. “How’d you see them, is what I want to know. These pictures are my property. And what are you doing, showing them all over town? What are you—selling tickets to these pictures?”

  Olive didn’t answer this, but just fixed Winchell with her firmest stare.

  A waiter approached and asked if the ladies would like a drink.

  “No thank you,” said Olive. “We’re temperates.” (A claim that would have been soundly refuted, had anyone been close enough to smell my breath.)

  “If you’re asking me to kill the story, you can forget about it,” said Winchell. “It’s news, and I’m a newsman. If it’s true or interesting, I got no choice but to publish it. And this item here is both true and interesting. Edna Parker Watson’s husband, running around like that, with two loose women? What do you want me to do, lady? Look down at my shoes demurely while famous people make whoopee with showgirls right there in the middle of the Street? As everyone knows, I don’t like to publish items on married couples, but if people are gonna be this indiscreet about their indiscretions, whaddaya want me to do about it?”