Last Night at the Blue Angel: A Novel

by Rebecca Rotert

  Don’t do that. I need to be able to tell the time.

  But I need to see the engine.

  You can take it apart tomorrow. Really, kitten. Why are you so nervous all the time?

  You don’t understand.

  C’mon, let’s be done. She stands and stretches.

  Mother hums while she walks me to my room, tucks me in, and strokes my damp hair. I am determined not to fall asleep. After she leaves, I lie awake wondering how the little red wires inside the toaster are made when I hear someone knock at the door. It seems to take Mother a long time to open it. I get out of bed and press my ear to the door. It’s another woman. I open my tablet to the list. There was one named Margaret a while back. I saw her sneaking out in the morning, and when I told Jim about it he said maybe it was Mother’s fairy godmother.

  I press my ear back to the door. Mother and the other woman are talking about how long it’s been. The other woman says, I’m surprised you agreed to see me, and she sounds very serious. I don’t think this is Margaret.

  Do you come to Chicago often? says Mother, loud and cheerful.

  The woman says, When I can. Davie comes all the time. We like to meet here. He’s good for an expensive dinner.

  It’s suddenly silent out there.

  And why does he come here? says Mother.

  Poker, says the woman. You haven’t seen him?

  No.

  How about that, says the woman.

  Would you mind lowering your voice? I have a child. Asleep.

  You what?

  I don’t hear the rest.

  CHAPTER 2

  IT’S ALMOST LIGHT when I wake up, curled on the floor by my door, and I kick myself. I slip down the long hallway to her room, avoiding the spots where the floor creaks. The door is open and I stand there looking at them, Mother sort of facedown, her arm hanging over the side of the bed and the other woman on her back, one arm resting on her stomach.

  She has dark hair, shorter than Mother’s, her skin is darker, too. The room smells like some entirely different season. A few bottles here and there, clothes thrown around like they were looking for something, the ashtray full.

  I start picking up. The woman opens her eyes and squints at me.

  Excuse me, I say, reaching over her to collect a champagne flute from the bed. She puts her hand on Mother’s butt and wiggles her.

  Naomi, she says.

  Mother rolls over. Kitten, what are you doing?

  I shrug. Picking up.

  Later, says Mother.

  When I get to the kitchen, I let the bottles fall into the trash can with a loud crash. I fill the percolator and put it on the stove. The woman stops for a moment in the kitchen doorway and stares at me. She’s wearing a yellow jacket with black trim and a dark tight skirt, and has large brown eyes with long dark eyelashes. I stare back.

  Coffee? I say.

  No thanks, she says, but it seems like she hasn’t heard me. She’s staring still, her mouth open a little.

  I turn my back to her and study the top of the percolator. The little see-through knob. I wait for something to happen.

  You must be Sophia.

  I turn around. Who are you?

  The woman steps forward and tries to smile. I’m sorry. I’m Laura. How old are you?

  Almost eleven. How old are you? I ask.

  Almost thirty.

  Pretty old.

  It sure is. Do you mind? she asks, pointing at a chair.

  She doesn’t wait for me to answer before she sits, slips off her black shoes so she can adjust the Band-Aids on the back of each foot, and then puts them back on.

  Do you have any kids? I ask.

  No, she says.

  Are you a singer, too?

  Not at all. She takes a small black hat out of her purse and attaches it to her head, opening hairpins with her teeth.

  What are you, then?

  I’m a stewardess. You ever been on an airplane?

  I shake my head. Is it fun?

  Not particularly, she says. But I get to go all kinds of places.

  Aren’t you afraid of crashing into another plane?

  She frowns. Not particularly. She stares at me. Forever.

  It’s not polite to stare.

  I’m sorry.

  She opens her purse again, takes out a small round box, and hands it to me. Open it.

  The wood is very thin. I shimmy the lid off and inside there are five little dolls made of brightly colored threads with little scraps of fabric for clothes. Some of them wear hats made of ribbon or yarn.

  Where’d you get these?

  They’re called trouble dolls. A woman in Guatemala gave them to me. That’s in South America.

  I know, I say, though I don’t. How do you know my mother?

  She leans forward like she has a secret. I’ve known her since she was smaller than you.

  I try to imagine Mother as a child but all I can see is her in her green gown and heels, but shorter. What was she like?

  Naughty, she says. Don’t tell her I said that.

  Did she worry a lot?

  Let me think. Yes, I suppose she did, actually.

  Just then Mother comes down the hallway, barefoot, robe open, the tiny key she wears around her neck on a ratty bit of silk hanging between her bare breasts.

  Laura stands and walks toward her. I think she’s going to hug her or something but Mother looks my way and Laura stops.

  Sophia and I were just getting to know each other, Laura tells her.

  That’s nice. Is the coffee done?

  I pour her a cup and leave it on the table. She’s looking at Laura.

  I suppose I should be going, says Laura. Mother nods, lights a cigarette, then tosses the lighter on the table. Laura doesn’t leave. She seems to be waiting for something.

  She clears her throat. Could I have a word?

  They step into the hallway.

  I’d hoped for this for a long time, I hear Laura say. I’m glad . . . I’m just so happy we could make everything right again.

  Who says we made everything right? says Mother. We had a good time is all.

  Laura doesn’t say anything. I hear her moving toward the door. I run after her with the tiny box.

  Your dolls! I say.

  Keep them. And don’t forget to tell them your troubles.

  She looks back toward the kitchen but Mother is already gone.

  I run to my bedroom and take out my notebook and flip to the list again. I write the name Laura under Margaret, Paul, Elsa, Guy with ring on pinkie, and Jonathan. I write the date and then I write: from the airplanes/curly hair/gave me her dolls. I hold them in my hands for a minute. Maybe the dolls could help me with the other list. I go back to the kitchen.

  When I come out, Mother is looking for her slippers—little marabou heels. One in the hall. She puts it on and walks around, one foot in slipper, the other on tippy-toe. She gets a cigarette from the living room, collects the round glass lighter while she’s there, and carries them around, one in each hand, searching; she is a human puzzle that’s about to come together.

  I don’t tell her that the other slipper is under the kitchen table. I pull a loaf of bread out of the bread box.

  Maybe she has it, I say instead.

  Has what? says Mother, barely listening.

  The slipper.

  Darling, what are you talking about?

  Your fairy godmother. Maybe she needs to fix it or something.

  She leans on the doorjamb and lights her cigarette, holding up the bare foot now like it’s hurt. Where are you getting these fairy tales? she says, blowing smoke my way. I know for a fact there are no fairy tales in this house.

  I don’t answer, wanting her to think there are many things she doesn’t know about me.

  She hobbles over and puts her arms around me for some reason.

  I wriggle out. The toast is going to burn.

  Oh, for God’s sake, she says, discovering the slipper, smiling, like, aren’t
we crazy girls? No, I think. No, we are not.

  How do you know her? I ask, pretending to look for creamed honey in the Frigidaire.

  Mother glances at my mouth. When she gets like this she’ll look anyplace but your eyes. She wanders into the living room. Ka-tee, Ka-ta go the heels on the dull wood floor.

  Another windy day, she says, looking across the living room toward the windows, across the turquoise walls and low, white furniture, the black-and-white photographs of her framed and hung like rows of square portholes, past the ferns and paperweights, out the window, into the wind. She has this way of looking out, looking past. She does it onstage, too. When you’re in the audience it’s like you’re caught between her and a lover in the back of the house.

  I left Kansas to get away from that wind and here we are! she says. Can you believe it?

  Kansas talk makes me nervous. I better start being good.

  Come eat some toast, I say, hoping to distract her. Honey and butter.

  My favorite, she says.

  She takes two bites and looks past me. All you could see was just wheat and wheat and sky and sky and wind. Oh, kitten, the wind never, never stopped.

  I need to come up with a way to keep her thoughts from going to Kansas.

  It was just—nothingness. It filled us with nothingness. It made you feel so . . . trapped. Isn’t that funny? With so much space around you? Trapped? Can you explain that?

  Didn’t you have a family?

  Of course, darling, she says. Most people do.

  The sadness comes over her. It’s like when the clouds move in and everything in the apartment goes dull.

  How come you never see them?

  My heart pounds. I know I’m pushing. Jim is always saying, Don’t push, Sophia.

  Just because you love someone, doesn’t mean they’ll love you back, she says, poking the toast and studying the honey on her finger. You may as well know that now.

  You shouldn’t play with your food, I say, but she doesn’t hear me.

  Mother has many kinds of smiles. This one is the I’m sad and all alone but I don’t want you to worry smile.

  She opens her cigarette case and looks around the table for matches. The blue Diamond matchbox on the stove surprises her, like it’s not been sitting there as long as I can remember. The paper crackles as she lights her cigarette, then she stares at the wall with the dead match in her hand. It just came crashing down, she says. Sometimes in life it just all comes crashing down.

  Hey, I know! Let’s go to Riverview Park today! I say.

  But she’s gone. All bad days start with Kansas.

  I go to my bedroom and write in my tablet: Matches.

  The door opens suddenly. Call Jim. See if he’ll take you, she says, and I want her to come into my room, to help me with my list, to read with me or something, but she’s back in her room before I can even ask.

  Jim and I go to Riverview without her.

  What’d he look like? he asks the second we get in the elevator.

  I shrug. Can we go to Aladdin’s Castle first?

  Jim scowls. Well, was he big, small, old, young?

  Last time you said you’d go on rides with me next time, I tell him. Do you remember saying that?

  Sure, says Jim, we’ll see.

  I don’t believe him.

  Was it a fella you’ve seen before?

  It wasn’t a fella.

  A gal?

  Yup.

  Well, what’d SHE look like?

  What are you, Perry Mason now? I ask him.

  He points his finger in the air. Was she real skinny?

  No. She had very long eyelashes.

  Anything else?

  Nope. She was just regular.

  He opens the car door for me. Regular with lashes. That narrows it down.

  Can I get cotton candy?

  We climb into his car and he pulls into traffic, yelling at a taxi as he does.

  I open the ashtray in my armrest and let it click shut. Open. Click. Open. Click. Open. Click.

  Sophia, says Jim. I stop.

  He looks at me during a red light. Does it bother you?

  What?

  I don’t know. The men, the women. All the coming and going.

  I shrug. I don’t know.

  He continues to stare at me.

  The light’s green.

  Riverview is crowded today. Lots of families. If a bomb got dropped here, so many people would die at the exact same time. I’m not paying attention and run into some guy.

  Hey, watch where you’re going, says Jim. So I try to watch and look around at the same time.

  You looking for somebody?

  If the bomb siren went off right now, where would you hide?

  He stops walking and frowns at me, takes a deep breath, and studies the buildings closest to us. He’s a buildings expert. Tunnel of Love? That’d be a good place.

  He points at the Tunnel of Love and I memorize where it is—across from the Chutes, next to the Comet—and I feel better.

  I ride all the roller coasters—the Bobs twice, the Jetstream, the Silver Flash—and the Carousel. The Carousel is not one of my favorites but it’s the only ride Jim will go on with me. I have enough excitement, is his reason. I beg him to take me on the Tilt-a-Whirl.

  We have to get going, he says.

  But I didn’t get to ride it! I say. Not even once! My hands are in the air. They are covered in a cotton-candy-saliva crust.

  Next time, he says, and we are walking toward the parking lot.

  We scope out buildings on the way home and park the car on the street in front of the Chicago Stock Exchange.

  Jim says, They’ll take down every beautiful building in all of downtown if they have their way.

  I don’t know who “they” is.

  Welcome to progress. Jim says this a lot.

  I look at the arch above the entrance, try to count the floors.

  Why do you love buildings?

  He combs his mustache with his fingers while he thinks. This town . . . it’s all hustlers and thieves from top to bottom. It always has been. But this . . . He points to the building. I don’t know, kid. Sometimes we do something right. Make something worth taking care of.

  Can we go inside?

  We’ll come shoot her soon. You’ll love it. Very ornate. I been in there so many times but there’s always something new, something you missed before. A very small detail. You’ll see. He leans back and looks at me. That’s how you know real beauty. Real beauty never changes. But it’s always new to you. See what I mean? I should write that down.

  I nod.

  Do you have homework? he says.

  I shrug. I hate Sundays.

  They’re not so bad, says Jim.

  Jim spends the afternoon with us. He and Mother smoke and laugh in the kitchen and now and then he takes a picture of one of us. They play gin rummy. Mother gets up to go to the bathroom. Jim looks at my tablet.

  Homework? he says.

  I shake my head.

  What is it?

  I’m making a list of all the rides I rode at Riverview and then I circle that list and write very difficult next to them. I also write cotton candy. I think about it. It can’t be that hard, the way it disappears just by touching you—your tongue, your hands.

  How hard would it be to make cotton candy? I ask.

  Not hard. If you have that machine.

  How hard would it be to make that machine?

  Can’t be that complicated, he says. Why?

  I put a question mark next to cotton candy.

  It’s hard to explain.

  Try, he says.

  It’s a list of things I might have to reinvent someday, I tell him.

  Jim taps the ash of his cigarette into the ashtray and squints at me. Why would you have to do that?

  I don’t answer.

  Do you think something bad is going to happen?

  I add machine to cotton candy and put a little star next to it.


  So . . . what sort of things would you have to reinvent?

  Well, not easy things like . . . I look around. Chair. The harder stuff. The stuff where I don’t know how they work.

  Jim looks at me. Let me see that list.

  I hand him my notebook. He studies it.

  This is a long list, he says. When did you start it?

  After they shot the president. When we came home that day and Mother was crying in front of the television.

  I know, I know, says Jim. Who do you think “they” is?

  The people who have guns. And bombs, I tell him. She never cries.

  She probably does.

  I would know if she did.

  He hands the notebook back.

  You forgot camera, he says.

  I write down camera. I study the word and feel the fear swell inside me. I have no idea how a camera works.

  It’s okay, says Jim. I do.

  Mother comes back. What did I miss?

  Jim says, I need to go to the darkroom. Want to come?

  The darkroom smells funny, I say. You should stay here.

  He’s looking at me like he feels sorry for me.

  Can you spend the night? I ask.

  Jim laughs. No.

  It would be fun! says Mother. We could watch Ed Sullivan and eat popcorn.

  He says, Well, all right, because no matter what Jim thinks, Mother can change his mind. We cook hamburgers and watch TV and make a bed for him on the couch, and while Mother tries to sing me to sleep in my bed, Jim leans in the door and listens.

  I tiptoe into the living room in the middle of the night. He is snoring on the couch with all his clothes on, even his shoes. I cover him up with a blanket and pretend he’s my dad. He stops snoring and opens one of his eyes.

  You the tooth fairy? he says.

  Yes.

  He sits up slowly. I’m fresh out of teeth. Will you take a cigarette? He tugs one out of his shirt pocket.

  No way.

  He lights his cigarette and leans back. Sit down, you dumb fairy.

  I sit next to him and we stare at the dark, still room.

  How come you sleep on the couch when you spend the night? The others sleep in Mother’s room.

  He sucks on his cigarette; the end goes bright for a moment. Because we’re friends, your ma and me.

  You’re my friend, too?

  Of course, he says. When you were a little baby, I said to you, “Kid, I’m gonna look after you whether you like it or not.” Know what you said?