Olive continued to level him with her iceberg stare. “I expect you to have some decency.”
“You know, you’re really something, lady. You don’t scare easy, do you? I’m beginning to piece you together. You work for Billy and Peg Buell.”
“That’s correct.”
“It’s a miracle that junky theater of yours is still operating. How do you keep your audience, year after year? Do you pay them to come? Bribe them?”
“We coerce them,” said Olive. “We coerce them by providing excellent entertainment, and they, in return, reward us by buying tickets.”
Winchell laughed, drummed his fingers on the table, and cocked his head. “I like you. Despite the fact that you work for that arrogant louse Billy Buell, I like you. You got some nerve. You could be a good secretary for me.”
“You already have an excellent secretary, sir, in the figure of Miss Rose Bigman—a woman whom I consider a friend. I doubt she’d appreciate you hiring me.”
Winchell laughed again. “You know more about everybody than I do!” Then his laughter vanished—never having reached his eyes. “Look, I got nothing for you, lady. Sorry about your star and her feelings, but I’m not killing the story.”
“I’m not asking you to kill the story.”
“Then whaddaya want from me? I already offered you a job. I already offered you a drink.”
“It is important that you do not print the name of this girl in your newspaper.” Olive pointed at one of the photographs again. And there I was—in a picture taken just a few hours (and a few centuries) earlier—with my head thrown back in rapture.
“Why shouldn’t I name that girl?”
“Because she’s an innocent.”
“Got a funny way of showing it.” There was that cold, wet laugh again.
“Nothing about this story is further served by putting this poor girl’s name in your newspaper,” said Olive. “The other people involved in this kerfuffle are public figures—an actor and a showgirl. They are known by name already to the general public. To be exposed to public scrutiny was the risk they took when they entered a life of show business. They will be hurt by your story, to be sure, but they’ll survive the wound. It all comes with the territory of fame. But this youngster here”—again, she tapped the photo of my ecstatic face—“is naught but a college girl, from a good family. She will be laid low by this. If you publish her name, you doom her future.”
“Wait a minute, is she this kid?” Winchell was pointing at me now. To have his finger aimed at me felt something like being singled out of a crowd by an executioner.
“That’s correct,” said Olive. “She’s my niece. She’s a nice young girl. She’s attending Vassar.”
(Here, Olive was reaching: I had been to Vassar, yes, but I don’t think anyone could accuse me of ever having attended Vassar.)
He was still staring at me. “Then why the hell ain’t you in school, kid?”
Right about then, I wished I were. My legs and my lungs felt about to collapse. I was never happier to keep my mouth shut. I tried to look as much as possible like a nice girl who was studying literature at a respectable college, and who was not drunk—a role for which I was uniquely ill-equipped that night.
“She’s just a visitor to the city,” said Olive. “She’s from a small town, from a nice family. She took up with some dubious company recently. It’s the sort of thing that happens all the time to nice young girls. She made a mistake, that’s all.”
“And you don’t want me sending her to the glue factory for it.”
“That’s correct. That’s what I’m asking you to consider. Print the story if you must—even print the photos. But leave an innocent young girl’s name out of the papers.”
Winchell riffled through the photos again. He pointed to a picture of me with my mouth devouring Celia’s face, and my arm wrapped—serpentlike—around Arthur Watson’s neck.
“Real innocent,” he pronounced.
“She was seduced,” said Olive. “She made a mistake. It could happen to any girl.”
“And how do you propose that I keep my wife and daughter in mink coats if I stop publishing gossip, just because innocent people make mistakes?”
“I like your daughter’s name,” I blurted out right then, without thinking.
The sound of my voice shocked me. I truly hadn’t planned to speak. It just came flying out of my mouth. My voice startled Winchell and Olive, too. Olive spun around and stared daggers at me while Winchell drew back a bit in puzzlement.
“How’s that?” he said.
“We don’t need to hear from you now, Vivian,” said Olive.
“Zip it,” Winchell said to Olive. “What’d you say, girl?”
“I like your daughter’s name,” I repeated, unable to break his stare. “Walda.”
“What do you know about my Walda?” he demanded.
If I’d had my wits about me, or if I’d been capable of making up an interesting story, I might have given a different answer—but as it was, all I could manage in my terrified state was the truth.
“I’ve always liked her name. You see, my brother’s name is Walter, just like yours. My grandmother’s father’s name was Walter, too. My grandmother was the one who named my brother. She wanted the name to carry on. She started listening to your radio broadcasts a long time ago because she liked your name. She read all your columns, too. We read them together, in the Graphic. Walter was my grandmother’s favorite name. She was so happy when you named your children Walter and Walda. She made my parents name me Vivian, because the letter V is half a W, and that was close to Walter. But after you named your daughter Walda, she said she wished that Walda were my name, too. It was a clever name, she said, and a good omen. We used to listen to you all the time on the Lucky Strike Dance Hour. She always liked your name. I wished my name was Walda, too. That would have made my grandmother happy.”
I was running out of steam—running out of tattered sentences—and also, what the hell was I talking about?
“Who invited that compendium?” Winchell joked, pointing at me again.
“You needn’t pay any mind to her,” said Olive. “She’s nervous.”
“I needn’t pay any mind to you, lady,” he said to Olive, and turned his chilling attention to me again. “I feel like I’ve seen you before, kid. You’ve been in this room before, haven’t you? You used to hang around with Celia Ray, didn’t you?”
I nodded, defeated. I could see Olive’s shoulders deflate.
“Yeah, I thought so. You come in here tonight, dressed all sweet and pretty like Little Mary Cotton Socks, but that’s not how I remember you. I’ve seen you up to all sorts of hanky-panky in this room. So I think it’s pretty rich—you trying to convince me that you’re a decent young lady. Listen, you two, I’m on to your racket. I know what you’re doing here—you’re campaigning me—and I hate like hell to be campaigned.” Then he pointed at Olive. “Only thing I can’t figure out is why you’re making all the effort to save this girl. Every soul in this club could testify that she’s no fainting virgin, and I know for a fact that she ain’t your niece. Hell, you’re not even from the same country. You don’t even talk the same.”
“She is my niece,” insisted Olive.
“Kid, are you this lady’s niece?” Winchell asked me directly.
I was terrified to lie to him, but equally terrified not to. My solution was to cry out, “I’m sorry!” and to burst into tears.
“Ack! You two are giving me a headache,” he said. But then he passed me his handkerchief and instructed, “Sit down, kid. You’re making me look bad. The only girls I ever want crying around me are showgirls and starlets whose hearts I just broke.”
He lit two cigarettes and offered me one. “Unless you’re temperate?” he said, with a cynical smile.
I gratefully took the cigarette and gulped down the smoke in a few deep, shaky breaths.
“How old are you?” he asked.
“Twenty.”
“Old enough to know better. Not that they ever know better. Now, listen—you say you used to read me in the Graphic? You’re a little young for that, aren’t you?”
I nodded. “You were my grandmother’s favorite. She read your columns to me when I was little.”
“I was her favorite, was I? What’d she like about me? I mean, aside from my beautiful name, about which you’ve already given us quite a memorable monologue.”
This wasn’t a difficult question. I knew my grandmother’s tastes. “She liked your slang. She liked it when you called married people welded, instead of wedded. She liked the fights you picked. She liked your theater reviews. She said you really watched the shows, and cared about them, and that most critics don’t.”
“She said all that, your old grandma? Good for her. Where is this genius of a woman now?”
“She died,” I said, and I almost started crying again.
“Too bad. I hate losing a loyal reader. What about that brother of yours—the one they named after me. Walter. What’s his story?”
I don’t know how Walter Winchell had gotten the idea that my family had named my brother after him, but I wasn’t about to dispute it.
“My brother Walter is in the Navy, sir. He’s training to be an officer.”
“Signed up of his own accord?”
“Yes, sir,” I said. “He dropped out of Princeton.”
“That’s what we need right now,” said Winchell. “More boys like that. More boys brave enough to volunteer to fight Hitler before somebody tells them they have to. Is he a good-looking kid?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Of course he is, with a name like that.”
The waiter came over to ask if we needed anything, and I came this close to ordering a gin fizz double, purely out of habit—but had the presence of mind to stop myself just in time. The waiter’s name was Louie. I’d kissed him before. He didn’t appear to recognize me, thank goodness.
“Look,” said Winchell. “I need you two to scram. You’re making this table look low rent. I don’t even know how you shoehorned yourselves in here in the first place, looking the way you do.”
“We will leave after I get an assurance from you that you won’t put Vivian’s name in the newspaper tomorrow,” said Olive, who always knew how to push people just a little bit further.
“Hey, you don’t come to Table 50 at the Stork Club and tell me what you need, lady,” snapped Winchell. “I don’t owe you anything. That’s the only assurance you’re getting.”
Then he turned to me. “I would tell you to keep your nose clean from now on, but I know you won’t. The indictment stands—you did a lousy thing, little girl, and you got caught. You’ve probably done a bunch of other lousy things, too, only you’ve been lucky so far not to get busted. Well, your luck ended tonight. Getting tangled up with somebody’s bum husband and a hot-to-trot lezzie—that’s no way for a girl from a good family to live. You’ll do more stupid things in the future, if I know people. So all I can tell you is this: if a so-called nice girl like you is gonna keep rummaging around with rough trade like Celia Ray, you’re gonna have to learn how to fight your own corner. This old hag here is a pain in my neck, but she’s got a lot of fortitude, going to bat for you like this. Not sure why she cares about you, or why you deserve it. But from now on, little girl, fight your own battles. Now get the hell out of here, you two, and stop ruining my night. You’re scaring away all the important people.”
TWENTY
The next day, I hid in my room for as long as I could. I kept waiting for Celia to come home so we could talk all this over, but she never showed up. I hadn’t slept and my nerves were a jangling nightmare. It was like I had thousands of doorbells attached to my brain, and they were all buzzing at the same time. I was too afraid of running into anyone—but most especially Edna—to risk going to the kitchen for breakfast, or for lunch.
In the afternoon, I slipped out of the theater to go buy the paper so I could read Winchell’s column. I opened it up right there at the newsstand, fighting the March wind that wanted to blow my bad news away.
There was the photo of Arthur and Celia and me, in our embrace. You could vaguely make out my profile, but there was no way to be sure it was me. (In low light, all pretty brunettes look the same.) Arthur’s and Celia’s faces, however, could be seen clear as day. They were the important ones, I suppose.
I swallowed hard, and made myself read it.
From Walter Winchell, in the New York Daily Mirror, afternoon edition, March 25, 1941:
Here’s some conduct ungentlemanly and improper from one “Mr. Edna Parker Watson.” How ’bout two American showgirls to keep you warm, you greedy limey, if one ain’t enough? . . . That’s right, we caught Arthur Watson pashing it outside the Spotlite with his City of Girls costar Celia Ray and another leggy denizen of Lesbos. . . . I call that a nice way to spend your time, mister, while your countrymen are fighting and dying against Hitler. . . . What a commotion out there on the sidewalk last night! . . . Let’s hope these three stupid cupids had fun playing for the cameras, because anyone with brains can see it: Here’s another showbiz marriage about to get Renovated! . . . Arthur Watson probably got a number nine spanking from his wife last night. . . . What a lousy day for the Watsons! They shoulda stood in bed! . . . That’s the word from the bird!
“A leggy denizen of Lesbos.”
But no name.
Olive had saved me.
Around six that evening, there was a knock on my door. It was Peg, looking just as green and grisly as I felt.
She sat down on my clothes-strewn bed.
“Shit,” she said, and it sounded like she meant every word of it.
We sat in silence for a long while.
“Well, kiddo, you sure did foul things up,” she said at last.
“I’m so sorry, Peg.”
“Save it. I won’t queen it over you. But this sure has brought down trouble upon our heads—trouble of every variety. I’ve been up with Olive since dawn, trying to bring order to the wrack and ruin.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said again.
“You should really save it. You’ll need those sorries for other people. Don’t waste them on me. But we do have some items to discuss. First off, I want you to know that Celia has been fired.”
Fired! I’d never heard of anyone getting fired from the Lily.
“But where will she go?” I asked.
“She will go elsewhere. She’s done. She’s in the ash can. I told her to come get her things tonight while the show is on. I’m going to ask you not to be in this room when she arrives. I don’t want any further agitation.”
Celia was leaving and I wouldn’t even get a chance to say goodbye! But where was she going to? I knew for a fact that she didn’t have a dime to her name. Nowhere to stay. No family. She’d be laid to waste.
“I had to do it,” Peg said. “I wasn’t going to make Edna share the stage with that girl again. And if I didn’t get rid of Celia after this mess, we would’ve had a palace revolt from the rest of the cast. Everyone is too angry. We can’t risk that. So I’ve replaced Celia with Gladys. She’s not as good, but she’ll do fine. Wish I could fire Arthur, too, but Edna won’t have that. She may end up firing him herself down the line, but that’s her call. The man’s a bad hat—but what can you do? She loves him.”
“Is Edna going onstage tonight?” I asked, in wonder.
“Of course she is. Why wouldn’t she? She’s not the one who did anything wrong.”
I winced. But truly, I was shocked to hear she would be performing. I thought maybe Edna would be in hiding—checked into a sanatorium somewhere, or at least crying behind a locked door. I thought maybe the whole play would have been canceled.
“It won’t be a pleasant evening for her,” said Peg. “Everyone’s read Winchell, of course. There will be a lot of whispers. The audience will be staring at her with bloodlust, wanting to see her flounder and flail. But she’s a trouper, and she’ll face
it. Better to get it over with, is her feeling. Show must go on, and all that. We’re lucky for her strength. If she wasn’t this resolute, or such a good friend, she probably would have quit the show—and then where would we be? Thankfully, she knows how to prevail—and she will.”
She lit a cigarette and went on: “I also had a talk today with your boyfriend, Anthony. He wanted to leave the show. Said he wasn’t having fun anymore. Said we were ‘bugging’ him, whatever that means. Specifically said that you are bugging him. I managed to convince him to stay, but we have to pay him more, and he stipulated he doesn’t want you ‘messing’ with him anymore. Because you ‘did him dirt.’ Says he’s done with you. Doesn’t even want to hear you ‘jawing’ at him. I’m just quoting here, Vivvie. I think I’ve conveyed the fullness of his message. I don’t know whether he’ll be able to put on a good show tonight, but we’ll find out soon enough. Olive had a long talk with him this morning, trying to keep the boy on track. It would be best if you steered clear of him. For now on, pretend he doesn’t exist.”
I felt like throwing up. Celia was banished. Anthony never wanted to talk to me again. And because of me, Edna would have to face an audience tonight that wanted to see her twist on a rope.
Peg said, “I’m going to ask it straight from the shoulder, Vivvie. How long have you been dallying around with Arthur Watson?”
“I haven’t been. It was just last night. It was just the one time.”
My aunt studied me, as though determining if that were true or not. Ultimately, she shrugged it off. She may have believed me, she may not have. Maybe she came to the conclusion that it didn’t matter, one way or another. As for me, I didn’t have the energy to fight my case. It wasn’t much of a case, anyhow.
“Why’d you do it?” Her tone was more puzzled than judgmental. When I didn’t answer right away, she said, “Never mind. People always do it for the same reason.”
“I thought Edna was fooling around with Anthony,” I said lamely.
“Well, that’s not true. I know Edna, and I can promise you it’s not true. She’s never operated that way, and never will. And even if it had been true—it’s not a good enough reason, Vivian.”
City of Girls Page 26
