Rouge

by Richard Kirshenbaum

  A frantic letter from her mother about her “downfall” and the importance of Jewish progeny may have compounded the decision. Josiah answered her dear mother with a businesslike missive. She had met a handsome American Jew (partially true, as he was Jewish only on his mother’s side); she would have an American passport soon enough; and one day, she promised a Jewish child named after her father, Menachim. She wouldn’t tell her mother that it would be named Miles or Morton, but she had her plan. She organized a courthouse wedding with the efficiency worthy of a fund-raising CEO. Jon was bemused and delighted as Josiah arranged for the attending rabbi, even though Jon’s father was Presbyterian, and organized a wedding dinner at the teahouse, inviting a few of the distant relatives with whom she was still on speaking terms. Their honeymoon was the tiny apartment she found on Elizabeth Street, and she flaunted the address whenever she could since their combined salaries allowed them to take up residence in the better part of town. She would commandeer his check every two weeks, and he was quite willing to hand it over for some sweet entreaties. After all, she was proud of her handsome husband and his regular, guaranteed paycheck.

  “Here’s how it vorks in my house,” Josiah said as she pleasured him in bed. “Your money is my money and my money is my money. Deal?” She stopped right before he climaxed.

  “Yes, yes, it’s a deal.” He laughed. “You drive a hard bargain.”

  “At times like this, it’s easy.” She reapplied her lipstick and smoothed her lingerie. Although he had needs, Josiah had little time for romance, as they both worked different shifts. He was lazier and often went to the men’s club to play squash and cricket, whereas Josiah was working across town. They did enjoy each other’s company, though, and he tried hard to please her.

  She stopped in front of Katz’s Jewelers one day. “I vant that ruby ring. I spoke to Katz and you can put it on layaway.”

  Jon smiled and made a note to come back on his own and buy the ring for Josiah as a surprise.

  With constant work and continued success in Melbourne, she decided it was the right time to expand the business. To add new products to her first shop and possibly open a second one in Sydney. It seemed to everyone, including her jealous uncle, that Josiah Herzenstein, now a married woman, was on her way.

  11

  FAMILY SECRETS

  New York City, 1929

  West Fifty-eighth Street.

  The Stork Club. Constance took a deep breath and silently took in the tony and well-publicized new club in slow motion. She couldn’t believe she was actually going to be dining at the high-profile hotspot and in the VIP section, no less. Feeling slightly intimidated, she pushed away any fears and assumed the posture of a regular.

  Think it, be it. Her motto had always proven successful, so why not now? She bent down and allowed her date, Van Wyke, the privilege of kissing her quickly on the lips in a patent exchange for the invitation. He hailed from one of the oldest and most venerable families in New York and she gladly allowed him to lead her from the coatroom to the table and to navigate the evening. She had read about the club and its habitués like most mere mortals in the newspaper gossip columns and could smell the rarefied air virtually wafting from the newsprint. It was the gathering place for café society—socialites, celebrities, and sports stars, all of whom went to see and be seen. At the Stork Club, glamour was finally in her grasp. And now her satin-gloved hand was being kissed by none other than the owner, Sherman Billingsley. She knew last season’s satin Poiret gown was still light-years ahead of what women were wearing in New York and she was happy she had made the investment when she was in Paris.

  The Stork Club was designed in the vein of a traditional men’s club; a long, wooden bar, seemingly lit from within, with green and amber bottles glowing like Christmas lights. Deep burgundy velvet curtains sealed the front windows, creating an air of secrecy inside. The tables were set with crisp white linens and sparkling crystal, no doubt wiped down by exhausted servers reprimanded for the slightest smudge. In the center of every table, a bouquet of peonies and gardenias drew the eye like constellation stars, casting a gentle floral scent into the darker notes of cigarette smoke and perfectly cooked steak. The most beautiful adornment arrived at the Stork Club every night: an array of gorgeous female guests who glittered more than a Hollywood film set and perched around the tables, with the gardenias at the center, like exotic rare birds.

  It was a known fact that Sherman favored society people over show people, and it was said that the Wyke family was so blue-blooded as to appear purple. Billingsley, a noted snob, treated Van Wyke like royalty as he knew his father’s pedigree. They were led to one of the best, central tables to meet friends who were already seated, having started on their bootleg martinis. With fanfare, Van introduced Constance to his best friend, Topper Stanton, and his fiancée, Lally Seward. A perfectly matched set, they both had a disaffected look bordering on boredom that came only with being very rich, very social, or entirely superior. Constance saw Lally surveying her from head to foot to see if she was worthy. Constance’s social intelligence was such that she could read facial cues and was chilled to detect an ever-so-faint hint of a smirk, which suggested that her surfeit fashion choice was a bit too bold for a first dinner. By contrast, Lally’s simple black velvet, sweetheart-necked evening dress and strand of discreet pearls suggested a much older matron or a debutante born to the purple. The latter she was. Lally was chic yet understated, and her appropriate and somewhat bland fashion choice proclaimed, “I’m too rich to have to try so hard.” Dinner, she knew, was a test, and it wasn’t going to be an easy one to pass. During the first course, which was pleasant but stressful, Constance decided to take a different tack. She would be the one to leave early. She knew this would throw them off and level the playing field. She had done it in business meetings and it was anything if not strategic.

  “Darling,” Constance said with her most winning smile, “I have to leave right after dinner. James, my brother, is ill,” she explained to the table. “No worries, it’s not influenza. He’s prone to migraines.” She nervously remembered to place her soup spoon under the dish and on the plate as she had just seen Lally do it. She had always just left it in the bowl. Constance was glad she was keen enough to observe and made a mental note not to make the same mistake twice. No one seemed to notice her faux pas. The spoon had lingered for only a few moments before she put observation into action. She had been wise enough to consult an etiquette book as preparation, but if she was going to be part of this crowd, she needed to know and do more. She was still a bit unsure of all the knives and forks. “Just work your way in,” the book had said. It didn’t offer specific soup spoon etiquette, however. Next time, perhaps she would not order soup.

  “That’s marvelous that you are so maternal. Isn’t it, Topper? Isn’t she just the cat’s pajamas?” Van Wyke, heir to the banking fortune Wyke and Co., nodded to his childhood friend Topper Stanton, of the Stanton Munitions family. He shook his balding pate as he slapped Topper on the back in a hail-fellow-well-met tradition. Van and Topper. Topper and Van. More brothers than friends, they had both been sent at six years old to Milton and then Groton in the upper grades, growing up together in the elite WASP enclave of boarding schools, squash matches at the clubs, polo, sailing, and weekends in Old Westbury. Van was eager for Topper’s approval of his choice of companion. Constance was beautiful, yes, but she was a working girl from Canada and not exactly from their set.

  “If she’s so pretty, why is she not engaged yet?” Topper had asked before the dinner, somewhat suspiciously.

  “She’s a flapper who works. Went to Smith, I believe for a year. Has a career. Very different from all the debs we know,” Van had explained. Topper was a bit surprised when she entered the Stork. She was a full head taller than Van and quite striking. A natural blonde and arguably beautiful. What was this blond Amazon doing with sweet yet meek Van? Something didn’t quite add up.

  “Well, I won’t ask for a kiss, th
en, Connie. Are migraines catching?”

  Van laughed nervously and nudged Topper and Lally, the Seward Oil heiress, to do the same. Constance knew her invitation to dinner at the Stork Club was a significant advancement in the state of their courtship. Their dates had become a weekly event in less than a year. While Constance was hardly attracted to Van, to either his bland humor or his doughy build, she knew exactly who Van Wyke was on the social pecking order, and best of all he did not seem to object to her having a career. She was also savvy enough to know that while she herself was wildly independent, single women didn’t just “go” to the Stork by themselves, and here she was and in the very best company at one of the club’s prime tables, treated to the best of everything. It only solidified why she was with him. They had met a year earlier at the captain’s table on an ocean liner from France, where Van had traveled to meet his father in Paris for business and summer vacation and Constance had gone to learn French beauty secrets for Gardiner Cosmetics. On the boat, they struck up a convenient, if platonic, friendship, which he seemed to want to overturn. He was fascinated by her business and her unique style.

  “No worries, I am quite healthy,” Constance said, and gave him a peck on his cheek.

  “Well, it must be very exciting to be in the beauty business. You really develop all your own products?” Topper was intrigued.

  “Yes, that’s my favorite part of the job. The ideas, the formulas, the invention.” Constance spoke softly. She knew enough not to talk about herself unless she was asked and to compliment the other women at the table who might be threatened by her successes.

  “Van, you found yourself a beautiful version of Madame Curie. How fascinating.” His blue eyes sparkled and he leered. Was he flirting? Constance blushed. He was the handsome one, but taken. She would have preferred Topper, of course, but had little use for men, so it was less vexing.

  “Thank you. And Lally,” Constance said, offering her a small white-and-pink bag, “I put some of my lipsticks and powders in this bag for you. I do hope you will use them. You have such a lovely complexion. Peaches and cream. Topper, I would say you chose very well.” They all laughed at the compliments, and the gift seemed to warm the glacial divide between Constance and Lally a bit. She had succeeded in downgrading from frozen to defrosted. They made more idle conversation until dessert.

  “It really has been divine. Topper, Lally. I hope to see you both soon, and so sorry I have to skedaddle.” She rose after a scrumptious chocolate soufflé and tea.

  “Lovely to meet you as well, Constance. So sorry you have to play Florence Nightingale tonight, but that bodes well for our Van here. I do hope your brother will be on the mend. Van, I really don’t know how you landed such a pretty one. And smart too. If you’re lucky, she’ll tell us all what to do.”

  “Lovely to meet you, too, Constance,” said Lally. The pretty pug-nosed strawberry blonde offered Constance a cool hand. “And thank you for the cosmetics. While I usually wear nothing, I will try. I suppose it’s time I used a bit of color.” She shrugged in a dismissive way.

  “You don’t need a thing on your skin. Only if you prefer. Lovely to meet you as well. I do hope to see you both again.” Constance punctuated the “do” and the “hope” as she had heard it done in the new talking pictures and radio shows. Van walked her to the coatroom, leaving Lally and Topper at the table.

  “I do hope to see you both again,” Lally said, mimicking her affectation as she left the table. “She’s quite attractive, but a bit common, don’t you think, Tops?” Lally held up a ciggie as Topper lit it for her with his gold monogrammed lighter.

  “I rather quite like her gumption. I think she is good for old Van. He’s going to need someone to tell him what to do. Never had a mother, poor chap. She died in an auto accident when we were at Groton. He needs a pushy sort to motivate him. Better a blond beauty like her than Alexander Lefcourt’s Jewish gal, what’s her name … Guggenheim something or other. Poor chap. His father lost everything in the crash and now has to marry out.”

  “Well, that’s understandable, since she’s rich as Croesus.” Lally idly wondered what she would do if her own father had been wiped out and she were forced to marry outside their set.

  “We all have to make choices.”

  “Well, clearly…” Lally blew a smoke ring in the air to punctuate the thought.

  “And I choose you.” He kissed her. She pulled away and offered her cheek.

  “And what about you, Lally? Do you want to be a thoroughly modern flapper and work?” Topper put his arm around her creamy shoulders, their pallor offset by her velvet gown.

  “Yes. I rather think I want to work hard … at play,” she said. “I think Father and Mummy would disown me if I had a job.”

  “Clearly.” Topper nodded, thinking about the Sewards and their lovely and eligible daughter. Lally was pretty enough and had the right name and breeding. Why was he now thinking about Constance? She was a different sort, yes, but refreshing. He felt a bit guilty about not disclosing to Lally that his own father had lost much of their fortune in the crash, but he had been sworn to secrecy.

  “Well, I rather liked her,” Topper said. “I think she’s smart and fun and perfect for Van. I think I will encourage it.”

  “I’m not so sure.”

  “Yes, but you’re not exactly running after Van Wyke and neither are your girlfriends. The only girl who would pay him any attention in school was Patricia Porter Pringle. We used to call her ‘Three Ps.’ The old joke was, ‘Here comes Three Ps. She has three Ps and five chins.’ How can you compare someone like that to someone like her?”

  “To her? A common social climber in last season’s garish couture? At least Three Ps has breeding. She will make someone a very fine wife, I can assure you.” Lally shook her blond pageboy in dissent. She was not about to break ranks with her group for a backwater Canadian!

  “Perhaps.… The way I see it … he has the name and she has the looks. It’s a story as old as time. Dance, shall we?” He offered a hand to his fiancée, and as she rose to the strains of the orchestra, he took in her ample behind. Lally, for all their protestations, wasn’t exactly tall and thin. And so he fixated on the Seward Oil stock as he led her to the dance floor.

  * * *

  Way uptown, on West 100th Street, Constance wrapped herself in a sensible, blue-black woolen coat to hide her evening gown. She exited a filthy yellow cab and stepped into the police precinct. She was not happy about having to come, but she had little choice in the matter, having received a message before dinner. She knew exactly what she needed to do. After speaking softly to a number of officers, they all were quite respectful, but each shook his head after her as she went. “Poor girl,” they said to one another. They had seen the familiar scene too many times before. Her brother, James, had been arrested for lewd behavior, and the poor, confused wife or girlfriend had come to bail him out.

  “I’m here to see my fiancé, James McCalister. He was wrongfully arrested.” Constance was grateful they had different last names. She knew that calling him fiancé instead of brother would help in this situation. Each one of the Irish or Italian cops had silently pointed her in a different direction. She was finally led to a holding pen on the third floor that was filled with derelicts, prostitutes, and seemingly homosexual men, a few of whom were pale, slight, and shivering and some of whom looked strangely quite masculine. All sat quietly behind bars, awaiting their fate. Each of the officers shook his head at the sight of her. Such a pretty girl, without a clue. The protestations were all too familiar. The “not my husband,” “not my fiancé.” “There must be some mistake.…”

  The sheer terror and embarrassment at having to pick up a loved one who had been arrested for being a “pervert,” a menace to society, a queer … would have been truly heartbreaking and devastating for one who did not know. Constance overheard one woman who was so disgusted she yelled obscenities at her husband in the cell, stormed out, and just left him there. But Constance k
new perfectly well and thought the whole episode was a waste of time, not to mention highly annoying.

  Police raids had become more commonplace among bars and bathhouses that catered to homosexual men, and James had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time. He wouldn’t tell Constance he was caught in the bathroom with his pants around his ankles. That would be too much information.

  Constance explained to the officers that her beloved fiancé was only meeting a college friend for a drink. Of course, he had no idea it was a bar catering to perverts. The officers took pity on her and released him when she posted bail.

  One cop, an older man named Kelly, said, “I wish I had my turn with that piece to show her what a real man could do. Poor, stupid girl engaged to a pansy.”

  Constance heard his crass comment but knew enough not to make a scene. She just wanted her brother released, so she bit her tongue. A police warden went to fetch James after her papers had been stamped, and she closed her eyes to replace the precinct with images of the Stork Club, to visually drown it out. James arrived and appeared visibly shaken.

  “Darling,” Constance said for effect in front of the warden. She hugged him and drew him close. “Follow my lead,” she whispered.

  “This is my fiancé.” Constance kissed him lightly on the lips. “He was drawn into this whole episode unwittingly,” she said loudly enough for all to hear. “They should all know what a real man you are and that you made love to me right before you met your friend for a drink.” The officers nudged each other and snickered. Constance had given quite the performance.