Last Night at the Blue Angel: A Novel

by Rebecca Rotert

  David sees hope in this. He slides his arms into the water, slowly lifts her heels, and rests her feet against his chest. He holds her feet flat against his chest like he wants to protect them.

  They look at each other and quietly reach some sort of decision.

  Then she seems to remember I’m there. Kitten, remove this man from my bath, will you?

  It’s clear by David’s face that he’s won. I pretend to lift him out of the tub and the water runs off him, filling the rug, and I don’t want to laugh but it is funny. Funnier, somehow, because I can imagine telling Elizabeth at school tomorrow, because I have someone to tell stories to now.

  Then David begins to unbutton his wet shirt, so I leave.

  CHAPTER 21

  DAVID IS MAKING breakfast when Annie from housekeeping arrives to collect his suit.

  He hands her some folded money. Annie doesn’t raise an eyebrow. Thank you, ma’am, he says as he stands there barefoot in Mother’s pink makeup smock. It’s just long enough to cover his undershorts. His legs are long and strong and hairy like some sort of animal.

  An hour later there’s a knock at the door. Must be my suit, David says as he jumps up to answer it. That was fast. I look down at my paper, determined to finish the problem before he comes back.

  Beg your pardon, I hear David say. I thought you were someone else.

  And who might you be? says a woman’s voice. I listen, think. As soon as I realize it’s Mrs. LaFontaine, I run to the door.

  I’m a friend of Miss Hill’s, says David.

  Mrs. LaFontaine looks him up and down. Is that so?

  Mother comes out of the kitchen in her long peach robe, braless still, smoking. Mrs. LaFontaine! she says, rushing to close her robe around her.

  Mrs. LaFontaine marches past David and holds a newspaper up in the air. You better explain this!

  I don’t know what you’re talking about, says Mother.

  A photograph of my child in the Sun-Times, playing in a building that is CONDEMNED. THAT is what I’m talking about. She shakes the paper at Mother. I entrusted her to your care.

  It was my idea, I say, stepping in front of Mrs. LaFontaine. Mother didn’t even know.

  Mrs. LaFontaine looks at me like she pities me. You are a child, she says, moving her eyes slowly to Mother. You didn’t know?

  It’s not like that, says Mother.

  David steps forward. Why don’t we simmer down a bit and have a seat. Talk this through.

  Mrs. LaFontaine says to David, The man in a housedress wants me to simmer down.

  I assure you I can explain, says Mother. Jim, my Jim, is very capable. He took the girls on a little field trip—

  Mrs. LaFontaine puts her hand on her hip. The man you pretend is your husband? About whom your child lies?

  Mother glances at me and says gently to her, Can we please sort this out? Over some coffee? I believe we can sort this out.

  Mrs. LaFontaine straightens and her face softens. She says calmly, I am not going to sit in this place and be party to the . . . loose operation you are running. Nor is my daughter. Ever again.

  She looks down at me. Sophia, my dear, I am sorry. To Mother she says, Good day, Miss Hill. David nods at her and she makes a barely perceptible click with her mouth.

  I stare at them both with their robes on, their startled looks.

  Mother turns to me, her face a caricature of surprise.

  I hate you, I say, barely able to get the words out, and walk to my room. Her disbelief is hot as the sun on my back.

  I open my music box and take out the Schlitz bottle opener I stole from the Armory. Mother’s record sits on top of the stack and I pull it out so I can drag the bottle opener straight across the black vinyl. Then I write David’s name in the back of my notebook. It used to be a list of people Mother loved but now I think it’s a list of people she’s going to leave.

  An hour later, when I hear the door, I leave my room to open it. I am sure it’s Jim. I feel my anger has pulled him here. But it’s Annie.

  Like new, she says, handing me the suit, looking at me the way Mrs. LaFontaine looked at me.

  David comes up behind me and thanks her. He carries the suit to Mother’s bedroom. While he’s dressing, Mother moves around the living room in such a way that each wall seems to appear sooner than she’d expected. It’s not hard to see that she hasn’t given a second thought to me, to what I said. She pours herself a drink and arranges herself on the chaise.

  Back in his suit, David quickens. He bends over Mother.

  It might be late, he says.

  Mother gives a light smile, a shrug.

  He squats in front of me.

  Where you going? I ask.

  To take care of a few things, he says.

  He leans forward to kiss my head but I move out of the way. Mother studies the ceiling as he leaves.

  Is he coming back? I ask. She doesn’t answer.

  Where are you going? she says as I turn to leave.

  Back to my room.

  She reaches her hand toward me. No, no, don’t, she says. Stay with me.

  I go into my room and shut the door.

  I don’t know what to do when I get to school but keep my head down and pretend to be working on my numbers. The boys say something to me that I don’t hear. Looks from the other students tell me it was something particularly rough. But all I can think about is Elizabeth. I put my head down and let her come to me.

  The bell is going to ring any second and she’s still not here. I prop my desk lid with my ruler and rearrange my desk, making a pile of papers on the floor—math homework I couldn’t finish and never turned in, drawings I started and hated, penmanship practice pages.

  Paul says, Maybe she’s a little doggy. The papers are in case she pees.

  I gather the papers in my arms and take them to the wastepaper basket.

  Just then Elizabeth walks in the door, a little breathless. She hugs me and we walk arm in arm back to our desks. The students look away from us.

  We take our seats and Elizabeth scooches her desk closer to mine.

  Ladies, no moving desks, says Sister Marie.

  Elizabeth wiggles her desk a bit, making a little noise on the floor, but she doesn’t actually move it back to where it was.

  Was my ma terrible? she whispers, her eyes big.

  She was so mad. I didn’t think I would ever see you again.

  Well, I’m not supposed to be talking to you, she says.

  What about your dad?

  He’s a little mad but he never said I shouldn’t be your friend. He says that’s up to me.

  Ladies. I don’t want to have to separate you, says Sister.

  Elizabeth looks straight ahead. I stare at her profile. Nothing is certain. When Sister’s back is turned, Elizabeth mouths, Write me a note.

  Sister begins with division and I look at the board while I’m writing Elizabeth her note. I imagine her mother finding it in the pocket of her cardigan, so I set out to explain Jim, the photos, the importance. I try to sound worried, like Jim, about the future, telling her things like Progress is a bulldozer, and how I hope we can be friends again.

  At recess, she says, We’ll just be secret friends, shrugging, like she does this all the time.

  Okay. We walk to our tree.

  So who was the man wearing a pink dress? says Elizabeth.

  It was a smock, I tell her.

  A woman’s smock.

  Mother’s, I say.

  Why was he wearing your mother’s smock? She’s smiling and holding her arms way out from her sides, like Jesus.

  Because he got in the tub, I begin.

  What?

  With his clothes on.

  He WHAT? she says, laughing and covering her mouth.

  He loves my mother.

  And he’s crazy? she asks.

  Yes. I pull out a piece of brown crabgrass and pretend to smoke it. He borrowed the smock while his suit got laundered.

  Are they going to get
married?

  I don’t know. I never thought of that.

  Well, do you like him?

  I think of David. Of the others. It doesn’t occur to me to like them or not like them. They usually don’t last very long.

  I wish my life was interesting, she says.

  Jim picks me up after school. I watch Elizabeth run to her mother, and when her mother looks both ways before they cross the street, she sneaks me a wave. In the car Jim asks if he’s still in the doghouse. I don’t answer. He says that he, Sister Eye, and Miss Rita talked about throwing me a birthday party, and I get so excited I almost speak to him. Instead I press my teeth together, but then I start to worry. Who would come?

  Something small, he says, as though he read my mind.

  But I would want Elizabeth to come and we’re not even supposed to be friends anymore. We have to be secret friends. I don’t want a party if she can’t come. Because then it would just be all the grown-ups talking about things I don’t understand like every other day of my whole entire life, I say in one breath.

  Easy, there, girl. I’m working on it. I’m going to make it right.

  He puts his hand on my head and I say, Don’t mess up my hair, which is kind of our private joke.

  Being secret friends is easy enough. Elizabeth and I sneak each other notes and talk all we want at school and sometimes, when her mother is at church or at the neighbors’, her dad lets her call me. One day after school, Jim and Mr. LaFontaine are talking when we come out.

  Mr. LaFontaine says to me, Miss Hill, we were wondering if you’d like to come to the university with us. I have some work to do and you could explore the library with Elizabeth. You are infamous explorers after all. Well documented, he says with a glance to Jim.

  Can I go? I ask Jim. He nods. Elizabeth and I try to conceal our excitement.

  When we get to the library, Elizabeth rushes ahead. She looks at the labels on the ends of the stacks, eventually stops, and turns into an aisle.

  Look! she says.

  A whole shelf of books on modern inventions and inventors.

  If you read all these books, you’ll be able to reinvent everything on your list! After the bomb! she says, excited.

  Holy cow, I say. Elizabeth wanders off but I stay.

  I study pictures of turbine engines and gyroscopes, and try to understand what on earth they are. It’s all more complicated than I’d imagined and I wonder if Elizabeth understands this stuff. I find her in another aisle, sitting on the floor with a giant book open in her lap.

  You won’t believe this, she says, wincing.

  We study a black-and-white plate of a man with a growth on his neck the size of his head. And another one of two children sitting side by side, their faces odd. Like birds. But then you realize they are sitting in someone’s hands. They are miniature children. We look at a picture of two babies with their bellies joined together.

  How would you even put clothes on them? I ask.

  You’d have to have them made special.

  We spy on a man and woman who are sitting across from each other at a table, fighting while trying to keep their voices down.

  I’m never going to have a boyfriend, I say to Elizabeth.

  It seems to involve a lot of fighting, she says.

  Does your mother know we’re together?

  She slowly shakes her head no.

  Will she find out?

  No, she says, but—

  But what? I ask.

  It seems like I always think she’s not going to find out things and she finds out. I don’t know how. Does your ma find out things?

  I think about this. She’s not really paying attention.

  Lucky, says Elizabeth, and then the couple catches her eye. Look! she says.

  The woman stands. Go to hell! she shouts, and walks off mad, throwing her bag over her shoulder. Her dress is short and she wears a belt around her hips.

  Elizabeth saunters down the aisle, moving her hips back and forth. Go to hell! she whispers. I imitate her, pretend to throw my hair over my shoulder. Go to hell! I tell Elizabeth. She crosses her arms and scowls.

  Girls! says Mr. LaFontaine, who has appeared at the end of the aisle. This is a library! he whispers loudly. We try to stop laughing but laugh all the way to the car.

  Eventually we are able to settle down.

  Do you go to the university every day? I ask Elizabeth’s father as he starts the car.

  I do.

  Do you stay late? I ask.

  No, I’m always home in time for dinner, he says. Why do you ask?

  So Mama doesn’t say, “Go to hell!” says Elizabeth, under her breath, and we are hysterical again.

  CHAPTER 22

  I RUN THROUGH THE lobby and take the stairs up to our floor. Mother is on the settee and the lights are off. Sometimes it’s hard to know whether to go to her or pretend to be invisible but there’s happiness in me still, so I try not to care.

  It’s nice to watch the sky get dark, isn’t it? she says. And the lights come up.

  She’s not wearing any makeup and hasn’t fixed her hair.

  Did David come today? I ask. He said he was going to stay. In the bathroom. Remember?

  Make me a drink, will you, darling? She holds out her glass.

  I went to the library at the university. With Elizabeth. We looked at all kinds of books and spied on people and laughed in the car the whole way home.

  Mother is still holding her glass out. I don’t know if she hears me, so I continue. I’ll probably go to the university someday. Maybe I’ll be a teacher or something. Elizabeth is going to be a doctor. She’s practically an expert on deformed people.

  Mother looks at me.

  I have homework. I’m going to go to my room, I say.

  She remains there, alone, as the room goes dark.

  I get out my math homework and hear a knock on the door but ignore it. So does Mother. The knocking continues. My little clock says six. Mother shouldn’t be here still. There are ten long-division problems on the page and the blue ink of the mimeograph looks like a bruise.

  It’s Jim. He yells. She talks back quiet and high, asks him not to be mean. Don’t be so mean, Jimmy.

  I try to remember eight times nine. I rub the ink on the page and it smears.

  Eventually, and not because I care anymore, I move to the hall and watch Jim and Mother in the bathroom, her on a stool in front of the mirror. Together they re-create her, him moving fast with the bobby pins, pancake makeup, and rouge, and her moving slow, touching up the edges of his work.

  He dots a lighter color foundation under her eyes.

  Jim? I say.

  What?

  How’d you learn to do all that? I ask.

  He squeezes a line of glue onto an eyelash and hands it to her. Go lay out some clothes for your mother, he answers.

  I know as soon as I hear the knocking that it’s David, that he’s come back. I open the door and he’s standing there with his bags.

  Your suitcases match, I say.

  He looks down at them. They do.

  His hair is a little messy and his eyes look rubbed red.

  Jim steps out of the bathroom and sees David. Jesus Christ, he says.

  Hello, Jim.

  Sophia, put on coffee, says Jim. Make it strong.

  David sets his bags down quietly. I watch him.

  Sophia, now! Jim says.

  I want to obey but I can’t.

  Mother comes out of the bathroom and stands in the hall. She and David look at each other like they’re on opposite ends of something—a teeter-totter, a balance beam. He goes to her slowly like she might startle, like she’s a bird or a squirrel, and gets down on his knees in front of her, wrapping his arms around her, pressing his face into the middle of her body.

  It’s over, he says. I’m all yours.

  Mother just stands there with her arms down at her sides, caught. She looks at the suitcases, then down at David’s head. She looks at Jim. She looks at me
and smiles like she feels sorry for me as she wraps her arms around his head.

  We don’t have time for this, Jim says, looking away from them.

  I’m here now, says David, standing up and facing Jim. I’ll take it from here.

  Jim moves his jaw. He shifts his weight back and forth a few times. You’ll take it from here? What the fuck do you know?

  Men, Mother begins.

  Jim tosses his handful of hairpins into the bathroom and begins to leave. Be my guest, he tells David. Just a few things. She’s drunk. You’ll need to make a set list because she likes a new one every night. Of course she can’t make one right now, can she?

  Jim, there’s no need, David says, but Jim walks right past him to Mother, who has her back against the wall and is rubbing her forehead. He faces her.

  So is this it? Is this your guy? The one?

  Jim—

  Do you love him? Or should I say, do you still want him now that he’s gone and left his wife for you?

  That is not—

  Are you even capable of loving someone who’s here for you?

  You chose to be here. It has always been your choice, she shouts.

  Jim backs away from her and starts to laugh. It has. Because I think one of these days you’re going to come around, you’re going to grow up. Break a leg tonight.

  He turns away.

  Mother follows him. Please don’t.

  You’re covered.

  I’m not. Jimmy, I’m not. I need you. You know that.

  No, I don’t. He moves for the door, I follow him and grab his leg.

  Please, don’t go. Please.

  He takes my hands in his. I’m not leaving you. Your mother pisses me off, that’s all. It doesn’t change a thing here, he says, pointing back and forth between us. Got that?

  I nod. He looks over at Mother and back down at me, shaking his head. You’ve got your work cut out for you tonight.

  I have to get ready, Mother says to David, who has been standing all the while with his arms crossed like we are a zoo exhibit. This is not a good time. She steadies herself against the wall and slowly slides down it until she is sitting cross-legged on the floor.

  David looks at me. I don’t know what to do here.

  I turn back to Jim but he’s already gone.