Last Night at the Blue Angel: A Novel

by Rebecca Rotert

  Won’t you join us?

  No, I won’t. He seems angry and walks away.

  Not on these terms, right, darling? On your terms, yes, let’s have a ball, she says with her arms up. But not these, not mine.

  David slams the bedroom door.

  Go back to bed now, kitten, she says when she spots me by my door.

  When I’m back in my room, I sit on the floor and open my notebook. Margaret is her name, I remember. I manage to stay awake until the apartment is quiet. Eventually, I go out and wake her up.

  You should go, I say to Margaret.

  Her eyes open and settle on me. I should.

  She fastens her pants and puts on her shirt. I notice that she doesn’t wear a bra. Then she puts her hand on my head. I’m sorry we kept you up. I really am.

  Do you love her? I ask.

  While she is thinking about this, she finally starts buttoning her shirt. Sometimes you take what you can get.

  I understand. It would be better to be with Mother just a little bit than not at all. Margaret puts me back in bed, tucking the blanket very tight around my body and under my feet. You’re very strong, I tell her.

  She crosses her arms and looks down at me. You’re pretty tough yourself.

  Naomi

  CHAPTER 25

  KANSAS CITY, 1955

  I’D SLEPT ON the couch of the little apartment above the Neon Parrot for several days. I read a worn, old copy of Cosmopolitan magazine while Caroline and Elaine got ready to go downstairs. Marilyn Monroe was on the cover. It was hard to tell whether she was pulling the black lace dress off her shoulder or trying to keep it from falling. Oh, this silly dress, her face seemed to say. “Why Men Pick the Wrong Women” was the sentence next to her head and where her hips would be it read, “Hollywood’s Most Valuable Property.”

  I longed to be beautiful, to be someone’s valuable property.

  The noise below us swelled until the voices and the music rattled the apartment. Caroline and Elaine moved from bathroom to bedroom to kitchen, quickening, giggling, saying he this and she that and did you ever. Caroline was wearing a black half-slip and pink bra, the hair around her face wound and pinned into perfect circles. She had two cigarettes going in different ashtrays. Elaine came in and out of the bedroom in various dresses, finally settling on a tight black shift. She pulled a scarf off the lamp, shook it once, and wrapped it around her hips, tying it to the side.

  What do you think? she asked, posing.

  I think you could wear anything, I said.

  She cocked an eyebrow at me and said to Caroline, I kind of like the country girl.

  Let’s not jump to conclusions, said Caroline, perching next to me on the davenport with a haze of perfume and hairspray. She began to deftly roll a stocking in her hands and pull it on, starting at her toes, straightening it along her leg, and fastening it to her garters. Her legs were fine, not strong like a country girl’s but long and bony like a colt’s. She quickly did the same with the other stocking and hopped up.

  Am I straight? she asked, facing her back to me. I reached down and pressed my thumb along the seam of her stocking at her calf, to straighten it.

  Thanks, doll, she said.

  They grabbed their cigarette cases and were out the door, their heels rapid-firing down the stairwell.

  The dollar bills waved in their wake like sad little flags. Smoke slowed and hovered under the ceiling. A breeze pushed out the tablecloth curtain like a blue belly and then pulled it empty again. It was suddenly so still.

  I went to the phone and dialed home. Mother answered. I didn’t speak at first. Hello? she said. Hello? Naomi? Is that you?

  Yes.

  O mój Boże, o Boże (“Oh my God, oh God”). Where are you?

  I tried to breathe because her voice made me cry instantly.

  Are you there? Please don’t hang up, she said.

  I’m in Atchison. At the convent. I’m safe, I told her. But you can’t call. They’re strict. I have to go. Tell everyone I . . . I have to go.

  I hung up, sat down, and cried for a long time, until I couldn’t anymore, until I could see that all the sadness in me didn’t change anything. There was the breeze coming in, there was the lamp, there was the same stillness the girls left behind when they ran downstairs.

  A nearly whole cigarette teetered in the dip of the ashtray’s edge. I picked it up and relit it, coughed and breathed enough to clear my lungs, then tried again. It was awful and hurt in a way that moved me, burned something in me that wanted to be burned.

  The door opened and I smashed the cigarette in the ashtray, coughing again. David saw me and said, Oh, for Christ’s sake. He went to a low cupboard under the bar and pulled out a gun, popped open the cylinder, and clicked it back in place before tucking it in the back of his pants. Help yourself to whatever, he said, gesturing at the kitchenette.

  Where you off to? I asked.

  A game.

  You need that gun for a game?

  It’s not just any game, doll, he said, heading for the door.

  I could come watch.

  Nobody watches, he said.

  I paced around the little apartment, opened the cupboards and the fridge, looked at the booze on the little liquor cart. I opened things and smelled them, poured myself a glass of brown liquor. It was awful, just like the drink Elaine gave me, but I felt like it was cleaning me somehow.

  Elaine threw open the door then and the room filled with sounds from the club.

  Did he leave? she asked.

  Yes.

  Good, then. Just needed to be sure.

  What kind of game did David go to?

  Cards, Elaine said, checking herself in the little mirror by the door.

  Does he play for money?

  Elaine faced me. You think Daddy bought him this club?

  I shook my head no.

  And don’t drink that stuff, she said, pointing to the glass I was trying to hide. It ain’t gonna help one thing. Then she left.

  The girls’ room was a terrible mess. I put away the stockings and slips, panties and bras, tried on the shoes, and walked all over the apartment. The heels made me feel very serious, like I was standing on the tip of something, walking along the very edge of myself.

  I lay on my back and listened to the crowd downstairs, the bubbling and billowing of sound like water boiling, and then a woman’s voice sang out, loud and plaintive, calming down the boil. I sat straight up. The sound of her made me ache and I put my hand between my legs—let it just rest there—and I realized that I wanted her, the woman who was making these sounds, or I wanted to be her. I lay back down with my hand still resting, letting the longing course through me and through me, never moving my hand, never doing a thing to stop it, to let it go.

  CHAPTER 26

  WHEN ELAINE AND Caroline woke up the next morning, they ignored me half the day as punishment for touching their things. But then I heard Elaine say to Caroline, It DOES look better in here.

  Finally Caroline said to me, If cleaning is so fun for you, why don’t you march downstairs and put the club back together?

  Yes, ma’am, I said.

  What did I tell you about calling me ma’am? she said.

  Miss Caroline, I said.

  I’m a young woman, she told Elaine. Then they turned their backs and walked away from me, Elaine telling Caroline she had the most famous legs this side of the Mississippi and Caroline returning the kindness by saying Elaine’s skin could make a peach feel ugly. All this to make up for the word ma’am.

  I cleaned the club every day, and every night I fell asleep on the couch or in the stairwell, listening to Elaine sing. She danced with her voice in a way I couldn’t imitate. She hopped it up and down her throat and into her head and way down in her chest like she was skipping a stone. I worked and worked on that while I was alone, scrubbing floors and washing glasses. My hands got rough as Mama’s. With my sweat and my muscles, I believed I was clearing the slate, killing off the weakness
in me, the childish needs. I dug my nails into the bar’s crevices where booze had spilled and crusted; I would leave nothing untouched.

  David played poker constantly. He and Caroline either loved each other or hated each other, I could barely keep up. I watched, listened, and learned, and tried to stay out of the way. In my daily letters to Sister Idalia, I asked her about her life, wrote down all the memories I had of learning music and listening to records and of the other kids at school. I wrote of the creek, her truck, the sky. I didn’t want her to forget all that. And I told her I was working all the time and learning to sing, both of which were somewhat true.

  One afternoon I finished my work and the apartment was empty, so I ran myself a bath. I picked up the phone to call home but then put it back down. What was there to say? While I was in the tub, David and Caroline returned. I heard them talking quietly in the main room but soon their voices got louder and louder until Caroline was shouting, You promised!

  And I’ll make good, said David. Just not now.

  It’s never going to be now with you. Never, said Caroline. I could go someplace else.

  Yes, you could.

  Other people think I’ve got something really special, she said. They do.

  I agree, he said.

  Then feature me tonight. You know I’m good.

  You are good. And Elaine is better. It’s her they’re coming to see.

  Fuck you, boss, said Caroline, storming across the floor and down the stairs. I waited for David to leave the main room but he didn’t. The bathwater got cold. I sat there shivering.

  David tapped on the door. Kid? You in there?

  Yes? I set a washcloth on my breasts like he could see through the door.

  You about done?

  I scrambled to get out of the tub. Yes, hold on. I dried my body fast and pulled on my dress, which was still wet in the armpits where I had washed it. It stuck to me, and when I reached up to pull my hair back, I noticed there was still soap in it. I opened the door and moved past David quickly, apologizing, and waited outside for him to finish.

  He peed with the door open and I turned my back. After washing his hands, he said, Come back in here.

  I went.

  Let me help you, he said, pointing to my hair. He slid off his jacket and hung it on the door. Then he draped a towel over the edge of the sink and told me to bend over it. After pulling up his sleeves, he slowly poured warm water over my head with a cup, running his hands through my hair as he rinsed. All of a sudden there seemed to be a thousand invisible threads connecting the side of my body to the front of his where he was almost touching me. I wanted to lean into him like I used to lean into the wind. He squeezed the water out with a towel and said, Sit down here.

  I sat on the toilet seat and he took his comb from the shaving kit he kept on the shelf.

  That’s not going to be easy, I told him, pointing at my head.

  I can see that. But still he took a small handful of my hair in his fist and began to comb it out, starting at the bottom. His face was close to mine but he was focused on my hair, so he didn’t see me staring. I wanted to feel his bristly cheek with my lips.

  Am I hurting you? he asked, looking me in the eyes. His eyes crashed on me and I suddenly didn’t feel like a ghost anymore, a cat trying to be quiet. I felt some part of me catch up to myself, like it had been dragging behind me for days, miles. Then all the parts were together again. I felt this especially under my dress and hoped he couldn’t see what was happening to me—and I hoped he could.

  No, I said finally, you’re not hurting me.

  Let me know, he said, working his way around my head, the tangles, knots made up of other knots. It took a long time. We were both quiet and tired by the end, from the work of my knots or from the invisible threads or both. I thanked him and left, wishing I had someplace to hide, to be alone. I looked at the clock; six P.M. The apartment would be empty soon. Just hold on, I told myself.

  Elaine arrived and talked to David in the kitchen.

  You’re set up to play with Sandy and his crew at the Continental tomorrow night, she said.

  You kidding me? said David.

  Wish I was, she said. You gonna be in over your head down there. Sandy will be by tonight to collect your buy-in. She walked with purpose into the main room and stopped in front of me. Where is Caroline?

  Not here, I said.

  I can see that.

  I’m making you a sandwich, Elaine, yelled David. You’re not drinking on an empty stomach.

  Davie, look at this dress. Do I look like I have room for a sandwich? She posed and I felt like she’d given us permission to look hard at her and I looked hard. She was so perfectly designed. If the magazines allowed Negro women, she’d be in them.

  She hid the sandwich in a drawer, giving me a look that said, Don’t you even.

  Davie, where’s Caroline? she yelled.

  Stepped out.

  Ah, shit, said Elaine. You fighting?

  Where’s your sandwich? said David.

  Tell me how I’m supposed to work the room and be your canary at the same time. Do you see two of me here?

  Easy now, he said.

  Elaine crossed her arms. Don’t you “easy” me.

  We’ll have Miss Naomi cover for her, he said.

  Elaine dropped her arms and looked at me. I knew what she saw, a country girl in the wet dress she’d been wearing for a week, pale red hair combed straight and just starting to frizz up at the ends. Never even shaved her legs. Freckles. Bare feet. I knew what she saw.

  She crossed her arms again. Let me know when you think up a Plan B.

  No Plan B, David said, his patience done. Help her. Fix her up and do whatever you do. Put her in one of Caroline’s dresses.

  Do you think this, she said, gesturing at herself, the final product that was Elaine, is just some lipstick and a dress?

  No, no, I do not. Improvise, Elaine, he said, walking away. This is jazz, remember? Pull out the fake book.

  He left.

  Elaine looked at me like I was covered in pig shit, sighed through her nose, and lifted up a bit of my hair to look at it. This part I can handle at least. As for the rest of you—

  She turned on the little fan on the table, walked to me, and spun around.

  Unzip me, she said.

  I moved the zipper down the length of her back slowly and carefully.

  She stepped out of her dress, laid it out flat on the bed, and stood looking at me in her peach slip, hands on hips.

  Sit down, then, she said.

  On the vanity was a container of some thick substance, like lard, which she scooped with her fingers and worked into my hair. Then she wrapped sections around big green rollers and secured them with pins she opened with her teeth.

  What’s a fake book? I asked.

  All the players have the fake book. It’s got all the most popular songs, chords, changes, and whatnot written down so even if you don’t have the full sheet music for a tune, you can fake it.

  I kept my chin tilted upward as she put makeup on me—pancake, shadow, liner, mascara, lipstick, rouge, powder. As she worked she slowly forgot she was mad. When the makeup was done, she studied me, then picked up a silver gadget, turned it on, and blew heat on my face and hair. She spent a little time on each roller, sometimes so long my head felt like it was burning. When she was done, she said, Hmm. Get up now.

  I stood while she looked me over, turned me this way and that. She put her hands around my waist, rested them on top of my hips, put her fingers on my shoulders, all the while doing some sort of calculation in her head. M-kay, she said as she pulled a green dress from the closet and brought it to me. I thought of Laura and the pile of dresses and the kiss, but it felt far away by then, like a song I heard once.

  This is the one, she said. She got out a slip and told me to put it on but gasped when she saw my bra.

  I haven’t seen something like that for twenty years, she said. This could be tricky. She fished ou
t several bras from Caroline’s dresser and fiddled with them. Take that thing off and try this.

  I turned my back to her and tried to get my breasts into the complicated cups of the bra. It squished them. Elaine turned me around.

  You’ve got to reach in and sort of get them centered in there, she said. Bend over like this.

  I was so embarrassed handling myself in front of Elaine but I had to get my breasts sorted out if I was ever going to get clothes back on.

  Not bad, she said when I finished, and handed me the dress. I put it over my head and felt around for the zipper, found it along the left side of my ribs and pulled it up. It was tight but I was relieved that it fit. I tried to pull my ribs together to make a little room.

  Let me look at you, said Elaine.

  I stepped back.

  Hmm, she said, nodding with approval.

  She sat me down and unrolled my hair, turning pieces this way and that and pinning them. Then she found a fake pink flower and pinned it above my right ear and brought me a pair of shoes that were snug but I didn’t care.

  Stand up, she said.

  I stood, wobbled, caught myself. I put my hand on my hip because I didn’t know what to do with my arms.

  Elaine made a clicking sound with her mouth. I have skills, she said. Terrible skills.

  She brought me to the full-length mirror that leaned against the wall. Allow me to introduce you to Miss Naomi, she said.

  I was shocked by the sight of myself, I looked like another person. Like a painted photograph of myself. I moved a little and tried to get used to it. It was what I wanted after all. I practiced walking around the room. Thank you, Miss Elaine.

  You still walk like a hired hand but nothing to do about that now, she said.

  CHAPTER 27

  AS I FOLLOWED her through the apartment and down the stairs, I was aware that nearly every inch of my body felt altered—covered, slicked, pinned, tucked, bound, painted, fastened, powdered, squished, pushed—but again, it was a pleasant sort of pain. It reminded me how much of me needed to be controlled and if you worked really hard, you could.