by Sofia Grant
“Are you a lesbian?” she asked dumbly.
Helen laughed, but this time it was rueful and awkward. “I suppose,” she said, “though I’ve known my share of men too. Honestly, I wasn’t thinking about, well, the fact that you’re . . . oh, what a mess. I’m terribly sorry, I truly am. I obviously made a mistake and I hope you’ll forgive me, but if you want to fire me I would understand.”
“Fire you?”
“Find someone else to play for the service.” Helen crouched down and gathered the sheets again, taking more care this time, stacking them and squaring the edges on the surface of the bench.
“No—wait.” Francie’s mind was spinning with thoughts that barely made sense. “I’ll never find anyone else, so please, let’s just pretend that didn’t happen.” But a moment later she couldn’t help asking, “Whyever would you think that I—I mean, what gave you the notion—am I that plain?”
“Plain?” Helen echoed. “Good God, no. In fact, if I wasn’t afraid you’d be insulted, I’d tell you that you’re just my type. But I never would have—look, I know how it is. I’m not crazy. It’s not like a girl like me can exactly take out a personal ad. Though . . . some do.”
Francie’s only interaction with lesbians had been coming home late at night from dinner in North Beach and seeing women drunkenly sharing a cigarette under the awning of Mona’s 440 Club. “Well. Like I said, it’s best if we put that behind us. You do play beautifully and I’m sure that Vi’s sons will be very pleased. I’ll bring a check, and if you could leave the music afterward, I’ll make sure to pass it along to them in case they’d like it as a keepsake.”
She was already backing toward the door, avoiding looking at Helen. “Well, good night, then,” she said, and let herself out the screen door.
The old dog lifted his chin off his paws as she stepped over him, then rolled onto his side. Having vetted her once, the gesture seemed to say, he’d found her barely worth the trouble.
Chapter 39
Alice
Alice was nervous. She’d been the first to arrive for dinner—ten minutes early, a longtime habit—and now, seated at a wooden table in view of the bar, she was certain she’d made a mistake. Her father told her he had chosen Casale’s Halfway Club on the recommendation of the concierge, but Alice knew the real reason had to be that it was far from the city center, which would provide the illusion of anonymity. She was actually surprised he’d put the reservation in his real name.
Alice had deliberately come alone in a taxi, so her mother wouldn’t feel like a fourth wheel when she arrived. The place was a bit rustic—apparently, they were known for their ravioli and spaghetti, but the place had the air of a tavern, with a long bar down the center and scuffed wooden floors and checkered cloths on the tables. They would all be overdressed. Why, why had she thought that now was the time for her mother to meet Bill?
It had to happen eventually—really, why her mother seemed to think otherwise was beyond her—and with everyone together far from home, unlikely to run into people they knew, Alice had seized on the opportunity. But with emotions running high from Auntie Vi’s death, bringing Bill had been a brazen choice for her father.
Though the alternative was unthinkable as well. Alice suspected that she alone understood how devastated her father was by Vi’s death. Because she’d been a sensitive child, and sequestered by her mother’s good intentions, she’d learned to read people at an early age. She’d noticed how Vi and her father seemed to always seek each other out at parties, and they were always going to art exhibits at the Modern that neither her mother nor Harry cared a whit about. There was nothing flirtatious about their friendship and, as far as Alice could tell, it had never engendered the least bit of jealousy on the part of either’s spouse.
But Vi was more than a pal for her father—she was a kindred spirit and, she suspected, one who knew all about Arthur’s secret life without being told. (For that matter, Alice believed Vi probably knew more about everyone’s secret life—including her own—than she ever let on.)
So it was impossible to imagine her father surviving this loss without someone to lean on, and since that person was now Bill, she couldn’t fault her father for bringing him. Bill wouldn’t attend the funeral or the reception, of course, but he’d be there when Arthur returned to their room, exhausted by grief and socializing.
Bill always did whatever Arthur thought best—after five years, the pair were still utterly, almost ridiculously smitten. Seeing them together sometimes made Alice ache—for Vi, for her mother, for anyone who had never known love like that.
She checked her watch—it was already nine minutes past the hour, and where was everyone? The waiter had come by twice to ask if Alice wanted a drink, and the second time she’d ordered a Manhattan just to placate him.
There she was—finally, her mother came through the door, looking harried, ignoring the waiter when she spotted Alice, so that the poor man had to follow behind her.
“Alice! Darling, where on earth is your father? He’s late.” She allowed the waiter to pull out her chair and plopped unceremoniously into it.
“I don’t know, Mother, it’s not my job to—”
But that was the precise moment when they made their entrance, her father looking furtive and even sheepish, and Bill beaming. Sweet, optimistic Bill, who’d listened to all of Alice’s stories about the family, seemed to think this was an occasion to be celebrated, not endured.
Her mother followed Alice’s gaze, and her slightly harried expression seemed to collapse inward, giving way to something akin to fear.
“Alice,” she said, seizing her hand, “I’m afraid this was a mistake. I’ve had a very upsetting afternoon. I’m not sure—”
“Just relax,” Alice said. “It’s only dinner. You can do this, for me.”
For me? Had she really just said that? Her parents should have made this happen. Alice shouldn’t have had to orchestrate this meeting, but since she’d been forced to live at home with them well past the age when most young people struck out on their own, she’d ended up in the role of peacekeeper.
“Dad!” she exclaimed, with brittle cheer. “And Bill!”
Arthur bent to kiss her cheek, then started to do the same to Francie, until he caught her expression. “Good evening, Francie. You’re looking lovely tonight.”
“Hello, Arthur,” her mother said coldly.
Alice poked a knuckle into her father’s rib, since he’d made no move to introduce Bill, who was hanging back awkwardly.
“Oh! This is Bill,” he said, with a little too much enthusiasm. “Bill Fitzhugh. Bill, this is Francie Meeker, my wife.”
“Former wife,” her mother snapped. “It’s nice to make your acquaintance. Do sit.”
Alice rolled her eyes; her mother was obviously intent on making everyone miserable all evening. If only Vi had been here, she would have teased and goaded her mother into behaving. Vi had always been able to bring out the best in her.
Her father and Bill seemed unable to decide who should sit where, and—worse—the waiter had arrived with Alice’s drink and narrowly avoided spilling it when Bill backed up.
“Daddy,” Alice said, “sit by Mother, please, and Bill, why don’t you sit next to me?”
Bill shot her a grateful look and sat like a chastened schoolboy. Once everyone was seated, and a round of drinks was ordered—her mother for some reason ordering a double Old Fitzgerald, neat—Bill launched into a speech he appeared to have prepared for the occasion.
“Francie—may I call you Francie?—I must say that I’ve been looking forward to meeting you for some time. It has been a privilege to get to know Alice. She is such a delightful girl, so I’ve known that her mother must be quite special as well. You really must be so proud of her. And your other children, though I have not yet been lucky enough to meet them, I’m sure they are quite accomplished, like their mother.”
Oh, Bill, Alice thought, wishing he’d discussed this with her first. Before she
could intercede, her mother gathered herself and regarded him frostily.
“My children are perfectly ordinary,” she said. “I am perfectly ordinary. It is only Arthur who has chosen to distinguish himself. But then again, you must know all about that, since you live with him.”
“Mother!” Alice exclaimed, digging her nails into her mother’s arm. “That’s quite enough.” She turned to her father. “I’m sure mother would love to hear about the new apartment. The style is Beaux arts, isn’t it?”
“Indeed it is, Alice.” Her father launched into one of his scholarly diatribes; architecture was one of his passions. While he was explaining how the building’s framing had survived the 1906 earthquake, the drinks arrived; her mother managed to down most of hers in her first gulp.
On one level, the evening proceeded in a perfectly conventional fashion. Menus were brought; the waiter, perhaps sensing the tension, if not its cause, made himself scarce until he was summoned. Francie grilled him relentlessly, asking about nearly every dish on the menu before settling, as Alice had known she would, on the plain broiled chicken. She was well into her second cocktail by the time the rest of them had finished their first.
Alice did her best to sustain the conversation. It was like the first time she’d gone out with the driving instructor her mother had hired several years ago, when he’d driven her out to Lands End, where they had the road to themselves, and shown her the gears, the brake, and the gas pedal and explained that they all had to work in tandem. In the same way now, she steered her father and restrained her mother and coaxed Bill to participate and was too exhausted by the effort to add anything to the conversation herself.
The food arrived, and everyone picked at it except Francie, who ignored it and ordered a third cocktail and began interrupting. Alice was trying to tell Bill about the trip they’d taken to Yosemite with the Carotherses, while her mother interjected (“it wasn’t Vernal Falls, it was Bridal Veil,” and “Frank was the one who found that poor squirrel and he only let your brother take it because it was dead”)—until finally Alice couldn’t tolerate it for one more second.
She laid her silverware on the edge of her plate and cleared her throat to get everyone’s attention. “There’s something I would like to say.”
Everyone turned to her in surprise.
“I’m going to be married.”
For a moment, no one said anything, and then Bill applauded—once, twice, until he realized that no one else seemed happy.
“What on earth are you talking about, Alice?” her mother huffed. “Please don’t be ridiculous.”
“I’m not being ridiculous, Mother. I’m twenty-five years old, and I’m in love, and I’ve already said yes. Reggie wanted to ask Father for my hand, but I told him not to bother.”
“Well, I think it’s a splendid match!” Bill said. He’d had several cocktails himself, which seemed to make him all the sunnier.
“Thank you, Bill,” Alice said. For some reason, she was feeling very calm—even detached, as though she were watching this strange evening play out from across the room. “We’re hoping you’ll do one of the readings at the wedding.”
Bill put his hand over his heart. “It would be my honor.”
“Arthur,” her mother said accusingly, “did you know about this? Have you been encouraging it?”
Diners at neighboring tables looked over, her voice having risen above the conversations around them. Her father winced. “I’ve met him,” he said. “I don’t see how that counts as encouraging it.”
“Well, that’s just fine!” Francie said, throwing her napkin onto her plate. “So I’m the last to know!”
Their waiter hurried over as she started trying to get up from her chair, too drunk to release her purse, whose strap had gotten stuck under one of the chair legs.
“Madam,” said the waiter, “would you like to get some air?”
“I’ll take her,” Alice said. Meanwhile, both her father and Bill—old-school gentlemen both—had stood.
Alice grabbed her cane and limped around the table and took her mother’s arm.
“Is she . . . all right?” the waiter asked Alice, and took her mother’s other arm. The restaurant had fallen silent, the other diners riveted by the spectacle unfolding in front of them.
“Stop it,” her mother said, swatting at the waiter. “She can walk just fine. She’s fine, I tell you—she can do anything any other child can do.”
“Mother,” Alice pleaded. “He’s only trying to help. Let’s get you outside, shall we? Get you some fresh air?”
“You have every right to be here,” her mother said to Alice, slurring the words. Her makeup had settled into the lines around her mouth and eyes, and her collar had escaped her jacket. “You’re just as good as them, you know.”
Somehow, this was the most horrifying thing of all. Anyone with eyes could see that Alice was a cripple. But the fact that her mother still needed to belabor the fact after all these years twisted Alice’s pity into rage.
“You don’t believe that,” she retorted. “If you really believed I was as good as everyone else, you wouldn’t have kept me locked in the house all these years!”
“Alice, sweetest”—her father was trying to get between them, attempting to pry Alice’s fingers from her mother’s arm—“let me take it from here, shall we? I’ll just—Francie, please don’t—ow!”
“Go sit down with your queen boyfriend!” her mother barked.
Her father retreated, muttering under his breath, while Bill seemed immobilized by shock. Their waiter was conferring with one of the other servers, while a third had hurried to the house phone and was probably calling the police.
But Alice didn’t care. “Mother, that was a horrid thing to say!”
“Well, it’s true. What am I supposed to do, pretend not to care while they bring scandal on the rest of us? I won’t sit quietly by anymore—it’s unnatural.”
“All I wanted,” Alice said in a quavering voice, “was one lousy civilized evening with the people I love, now that we’ve lost Vi. What do you think she would think of the way you’re behaving? You should be ashamed of yourself.”
Alice picked up her purse and, wishing she could storm out, had to settle for limping her way past the other tables toward the exit.
Behind her, she heard a crash, a breaking of glass and crockery, and then—in her mother’s strident voice—“Goddamn you, get your hands off me!”
But Alice didn’t turn around—she didn’t even slow down. This was a mess of her parents’ own making, and they were going to have to clean it up themselves. Because Alice, after a quarter century under her parents’ roof, had finally found other fish to fry.
Chapter 40
Willy
Willy had never been to the bar at the Horseshoe Club before; Harry had promised to take her when he came to town, but in the three weeks that she’d been stuck in Reno, that had happened exactly zero times. So when Charlie Carothers called and asked to meet, she’d named the Horseshoe and gotten there early and ordered a bottle of champagne to boot, since her last bottle of champagne had been wasted on that stupid fat cow Francie Meeker.
But by the time he arrived, ten minutes late and looking none too happy to be there, Willy had barely touched the glass the waiter had poured for her. She was too nervous—whatever Harry’s youngest son had to say to her, it couldn’t possibly be good.
She knew it was Charlie the moment he walked in and scanned the room, and despite the crowd of swankily dressed people, he zeroed in on her instantly. Though Willy supposed it wouldn’t have been very difficult to spot her, since the only other women present were with other men or were prostitutes making time at the bar.
Willy had been propositioned by a man at Dunc’s the first week she was in Reno. Since then, she’d avoided going to establishments like that alone. That was the great thing about Gwin’s—there were always far more women than men, which tended to keep the fellows in line, and those who did exceed the b
ounds of decency were generally so drunk that they were easily managed.
“Miss Carroll?” Charlie asked politely when he reached her table.
“Yes, it’s very nice to meet you. Do sit down,” she said. “I took the liberty of ordering. I hope you like champagne.”
Charlie barely glanced at the bottle sweating in the silver bucket as a waiter appeared. “I like it fine. On second thought,” he said to the waiter, “bring me a tonic water, please. And a couple aspirin, if you’ve got ’em.”
“Very good, sir,” the waiter said, removing the second champagne flute from the table.
Willy wondered if Charlie was hungover. Harry was fond of the bottle himself, and it amused him to see her tipsy—or maybe he just knew it increased his chances of getting her into bed. She’d had to work harder, lately, to show enough enthusiasm; until the ring was on her finger, she needed to remind him what he was buying. Too little, and Harry became petulant and glum and the just-because gifts dried up. But too much, and a man like Harry would begin to think he’d aimed too low and start looking around.
“It’s so nice to finally meet one of Harry’s sons,” she said after the waiter left. She’d dressed with care for the meeting, borrowing a yellow cotton batiste dress with a sweetheart neckline from the girl in the next room, adding pearls that looked real enough and only a bit of rouge and eyebrow pencil. And false lashes, but that was because her real ones had become a bit stumpy and thin from the glue, and she couldn’t exactly go without while she waited for them to grow back in. “He talks about you all the time.”
“Is that right.”
“And I want to extend my most heartfelt condolences on the loss of your mother,” Willy continued, putting her hand over her heart to show how sad it made her. And it was sad—terrible, really, despite what she’d said to that awful woman the other night—but Willy had her own burdens and found it hard to feel too sorry for a grown man who hadn’t had to work for anything in his life. Harry paid his sons a scandalous amount of money considering how little experience they had—especially Charlie, who was apparently no good at sales, so Harry just had him supervise the tradesmen.
