All for a Song

by Allison Pittman

  “You’re going to be another man’s wife in two weeks too. Or had you forgotten?”

  She sat at the top corner of the blanket and stretched her legs out in front of her, trying not to feel shock when Roland laid himself flat on his back, his head a mere arm’s length from her hip, his hat resting atop his face.

  “Just twenty minutes or so,” he said, his voice muffled. “You use this time to contemplate all of God and nature. Then we’ll go home.”

  Home. For as long as they were welcome, anyway. For the moment, home was Roland, wherever he might be.

  She watched the couples frolicking down the way. Certainly they must be nearly her age, but she felt so much older. Would Brent ever engage in such activity? She tried to picture him in one of those suits, his broad shoulders intersected by the straps of the top, his legs . . . She’d never seen his legs. In fact, she’d never seen as much of any man before today.

  To keep her thoughts pure, she turned her gaze to the ocean, though her attention and eyes often glanced down at the man who snoozed beside her. She would miss him once she got home. He’d shared with her moments of passionate worship and quiet contemplation.

  And she could never tell a soul. Not Darlene, not Ma, and certainly not Brent. How could she explain friendship with such a dashing, worldly gentleman? And those new stirrings, suggesting that it could be something more? Blame the warmth of the sun, the surging of the waves, the scenery of half-naked bodies engaged in such provocative—yet innocent—physicality.

  Small snoring sounds were coming from under his hat. That, combined with the lapping waves and drowsy light, began to tug on Dorothy Lynn’s strength. She scooted halfway down the blanket and, maintaining the distance between them, mimicked Roland’s position. She brought the scarf lofting down over her face and closed her eyes. Hands folded over her chest, she envisioned herself as a narrow plank.

  “Dorothy?” His voice seemed a continent away, even though he was close enough to touch.

  “Mm-hmm?”

  “Later, when we’re driving back? Remind me that I’ve just had a brilliant idea.”

  She made a soft sound of promise before succumbing to the darkness of salt and sand and silk.

  As it turned out, Roland kept his idea to himself on the ride back to the Alexandria, where they shared an early supper in the dining room before parting company for the night. At his instruction, Dorothy Lynn arrived at the same table the next morning to find a plate of scrambled eggs and a pot of coffee awaiting.

  “Today, my girl, I’m taking you shopping for a dress.”

  “I have a dress, Mr. Lundi. A dozen of them. You’ve already done so much—”

  “I guarantee you don’t have a dress for where we’re going tonight.” He looked mischievous, completely reinvigorated, and recovered from yesterday’s blow.

  “Is this your big idea, then?”

  He took a swig of orange juice. “I’m taking you to a premiere tonight. New Buster Keaton film. Aimee loves that guy. I had toshake a lot of hands to get these tickets, and they were waitingforme at the front desk when we got back yesterday afternoon.”

  “Are you sure? After yesterday, I don’t know how comfortable I’d feel seein’ her again.”

  He winked. “She doesn’t know. These were left for me, and I just got fired.”

  “Why take me?”

  “Because the movie world is smaller than the smallest town, and if we talk to enough people, somebody will know somebody who knows somebody who knows your brother.”

  Instantly, she brightened. “Do you really think so?”

  “It’s worth a shot. I’ve made arrangements at a boutique where Aimee has an account. They’re expecting us later this afternoon. And after that, your hair. How do you feel about cutting it?”

  She touched a tuft self-consciously. “Oh, Mr. Lundi. I couldn’t—”

  “Just remember, time was you thought you couldn’t sing in front of a crowd, either.”

  The shop was called Les Femmes en Vogue—something Dorothy Lynn flatly refused to say aloud after Roland ridiculed her first attempts during their fifteen-minute walk from the Alexandria.

  “I’ve called ahead,” Roland said by way of assuaging her feelings, “with all your details. Celine’s the best.”

  She couldn’t imagine what details he could be talking about. Her size? Maybe, and the event, which she understood to be nothing less than a fancy party filled with movie stars. The thought of going to such a thing tumbled her breakfast, and she willed herself not to think on it anymore, especially when she walked into the pink-and-white foyer of Les Femmes en Vogue.

  “Roland!” The woman’s voice was deep and throaty, befitting its accent that made Roland sound like some foreign delicacy.

  “Celine.”

  The two exchanged brief kisses to each other’s cheeks, for which the slender woman had to bend. Then, to Dorothy Lynn’s surprise, Celine offered her the same greeting.

  “This is she?”

  “This is.”

  “And she is lovely?”

  Dorothy Lynn wasn’t sure if the phrase sounded like a question because of the woman’s accent or her surprise at Roland’s judgment.

  “She’s in your hands,” he said, heading toward the door. “I’ll be back in an hour.”

  Celine’s veneer of charm cracked only slightly once she was alone with Dorothy Lynn. “You sit,” she said, using her long cigarette holder to point to a damask-covered chair in the corner. She went to a curtained doorway and hissed something in French. Soon after, a young woman dressed head to toe in shimmering green silk appeared.

  “This one?” Celine said.

  It took a moment for Dorothy Lynn to realize the woman was talking to her. “It’s beautiful,” she said at last.

  Celine looked at the model, then Dorothy Lynn, then the model again; she took a drag on her cigarette and said, “Non.”

  With absolutely no change of expression, the model left, and at Celine’s command, another—identical, as far as Dorothy Lynn could tell—stood in her place. She wore a gown of diagonal black and silver stripes and a jeweled cap.

  “This one?”

  “Looks like a zebra,” Dorothy Lynn said.

  Celine’s wrinkled look of disdain was clearly meant for Dorothy Lynn’s commentary, not the dress. “Non.”

  This time, the model gave Dorothy Lynn a withering glare clear up to the moment she disappeared behind the curtain.

  “I’m sorry,” Dorothy Lynn said. “I didn’t mean—”

  It took only one raised eyebrow to stanch her apology, at which point, never taking her eyes off Dorothy Lynn, Celine bared her teeth and said, “La rouge.”

  This time, when the girl came out, Dorothy Lynn sat up straighter in the chair and shook her head. “No.”

  “Oui.”

  She attempted the accent. “Non.”

  Celine strode across the room—a frightening vision—and placed a single thin, lacquer-tipped nail in the center of Dorothy Lynn’s forehead. “Monsieur Lundi? He say I decide. I choose la rouge.”

  “But I couldn’t—”

  “Up.”

  Dorothy Lynn stood, feeling very much like prize livestock at a county fair.

  “Tournez.”

  She turned, slowly.

  Again, Celine looked at the model, then Dorothy Lynn, then the model again. This time, when she bared her teeth, it was in a triumphant grin. “La rouge. C’est parfait. We will deliver by six o’clock.”

  Dorothy Lynn knew she would win no argument with Celine, so she simply said, “Thank you,” and planned to wage war with Roland later in the day. She had no reason to go to a movie premiere and no business going anywhere in that dress.

  Well aware that protest would be futile, she allowed herself to be handed over to a woman in a pale-blue smock who appeared at Celine’s calling.

  “Les cheveux,” she said, bringing Dorothy Lynn to full understanding as she tugged at her hair. “Terrible.”

&n
bsp; That she understood too.

  The woman in the mirror was more familiar than not. She’d fought valiantly in at least three languages to keep her hair free from the snapping scissors. The resulting style—a product of countless hot irons and pins—looked miraculously like a bob, especially tucked underneath the jeweled headband. Her eyes were heavily kohled and shadowed, her lips and cheeks rouged. When they’d finished, the gaggle of women assigned to her transformation insisted on walking her back to the hotel, declaring that it would be a disaster if Roland were to see her before she was complete.

  Meaning, la rouge.

  Now, at quarter to eight, she stood in her room at the Alexandria, waiting, while a few blocks away at Les Femmes en Vogue, Celine could rest in triumph: Dorothy Lynn was wearing the dress. It was red—what there was of it—made of alternating panels of silk and chiffon, sleeveless, and cut with a deep V in the front and the back. She’d known the minute it dropped over her shoulders that it was perfect. Her fears of being exposed disappeared behind the flashes of her own flesh. If anything, she was hidden. Disguised. Alone in this room, Dorothy Lynn Dunbar had disappeared, not to be found again until she heard the familiar knock on the door.

  “Baby,” Roland said, as punctuation to a long, wolfish whistle. “I’m not always right about everything, but when I am . . .”

  “Enough,” Dorothy Lynn said, suddenly feeling as bare and red as the dress. “I can’t go out like this.”

  “Au contraire, sweetheart.” He walked right past her, carrying a box with Les Femmes en Vogue etched in gold on the lid, which he dropped unceremoniously on the bed. “I think it would be a crime for you not to go out like this. Fair warning, though. You stick right with me.”

  “You’re not helping your case, Mr. Lundi.” But already, after just a few minutes under his gaze, she felt her heart settle into a normal rhythm and her skin thicken around her.

  “Stop with the ‘Mr. Lundi’ nonsense. Makes me feel old, and makes you sound like a little girl, which you’re not.”

  “Not in this dress. It’s scandalous. What would my mother say?”

  “Your mother isn’t here.”

  “Brent wouldn’t approve.”

  “He would if he could see you.”

  She went back to the mirror, trying to see herself through Brent’s eyes. More so, to imagine him standing behind her. Instead, Roland appeared. He wore an impeccably cut black tuxedo, set off by crisp white collar and cuffs. His hair was parted far to one side and slicked back, accentuating the angles of his dark, handsome face; his eyes sparkled like the topaz stones in his cuff links. She leaned back because he smelled good too—clean and spicy, nothing like his everyday scent of travel and tobacco.

  “That color?” His breath warmed her neck. “That red against your skin looks like a rose in the snow.”

  “Roses don’t belong in snow. They’d die.”

  “They die anyway, don’t they? I suppose you’d think it a better fate to be pressed away in some book, dried and flat forever. Wouldn’t it be better to have one moment of stunning beauty?”

  Her heart pounded as every nerve in her body reached to tickle the underside of her skin. “Just what are you suggestin’, Mr. Lundi?” Far too dangerous to call him anything else.

  “Relax, ma petite rose. It’s going to be a big movie crowd there tonight. Lots of opportunities to shake hands and rub shoulders and ask if any of them have a guy working on their set named Donny Dunbar. It’s a catchy-enough name, but if I have his beautiful, sad sister in tow, it might jog a few more memories.”

  Still not completely convinced of his motives, she nonetheless allowed herself the space of a long, deep breath as she weighed the danger of going out against the missed opportunity if she were to stay here alone.

  “Do you really think we might find him?”

  “I don’t know, sweetheart, but we’ll sure have a blast trying.”

  “And you’re not worried about what Sister Aimee will say when she finds out?”

  They’d been speaking to each other through their reflections. He stepped away from her, out of the frame. “As of this minute,” he said, patting his pockets in the familiar routine of searching for a cigarette, “I am my own man. Cut loose and free.”

  “Please don’t smoke in here,” Dorothy Lynn said. The odorous film left by previous tenants was horrible enough.

  “Well,” he said, smiling, “perhaps not totally free. Shall we?”

  This, then, was her time to decide, and she did. “Lead on.”

  “Wait a minute.” He stopped to open the box and produced a black fringed shawl embellished with roses embroidered in a silk that perfectly matched the shade of her dress. “Something to throw over your shoulders to keep the chill—and the dogs—at bay.”

  “Thank you,” she said, though she felt much less gratitude than her tone might suggest. “Where do you come up with these things?”

  “I’m a resourceful man,” he said, and she knew he’d elaborate no further. “By the way, how do I look?”

  “Handsome as always.” Here, she underplayed her enthusiasm to avoid gushing, for he looked almost nothing like always.

  He offered her his arm, and before she could register any other protest, she took it, holding herself close to him as they walked down the hall.

  “Will the car be waiting out front?” she asked once they were in the elevator, not because she needed to know, but because the space felt too heavy with silence.

  “I’ll call for it from the lobby. I didn’t know how much of a fight you were going to put up.”

  This comment brought a snicker from the boy working the elevator and prompted Dorothy Lynn to pinch the inside of Roland’s arm, though she didn’t let go of her grip.

  Like never before, the lush lobby of the Alexandria Hotel welcomed her as she stepped across the lift’s threshold. Eyes turned, as she knew they would; a few whispered comments identified her as the woman who had been singing at the piano the previous morning. She buried her face in Roland’s shoulder, taking care not to smudge her makeup.

  “Don’t bother hiding,” he whispered. “They know a star when they see one.”

  “I’m not a star,” she said with a smile tugging at every word.

  “Not yet. But I tell you, sweetheart, give me a month, and you’d be on magazines.”

  For reasons far different from those of her first day in the place, Dorothy Lynn dreaded being left alone for even a single minute among the potted palms and marbled columns. Already, the few scraps of silk she wore felt like they were melting away.

  “I don’t think this is a good idea,” she said, not sure if he was listening, as his eyes roamed the room behind her, occasionally lighting up in greeting.

  “To take the car?”

  “To go.”

  He made a sound of impatience, took her arm, and steered her away from the desk. “Well, then, we need to come to a decision.”

  “I just . . . I’m not myself. This isn’t me.”

  “All the more reason, don’t you think?”

  “I don’t know of a single person who would approve, including myself.”

  “I don’t believe you. About the others, of course. But you? If there wasn’t some tiny, important part of you that didn’t think this was a gas, then you wouldn’t be here. Not in this lobby, not in this state. Look, I’m no kidnapper. I’m not going to throw you over my shoulder and carry you out the door. In ten minutes my car will be outside, and I’ll be behind the wheel. If you want to join me, fine. If not, go upstairs, order up some supper, and go to bed. Your company is not so delightful that I’ll grovel for it.”

  And he left.

  A slap would have stung less. In the wake of his exit, she couldn’t be sure if he was hurt by her lack of trust or frustrated by her indecision. Either way, she remained rooted to the floor, desiring with half her heart to follow him, if only the other half would give its permission. But then, the other half of her heart wasn’t here. It was back
home enjoying a peaceful, quiet Saturday night.

  She had ten minutes. Long enough to obtain a blessing.

  With quick, measured steps, she headed toward the row of phone booths across the lobby, but soon realized she’d forgotten to grab her purse when she left the room. Quicker steps brought her back to the concierge’s desk, where the thick man with a thin moustache seemed quite eager to help.

  “I’m afraid I’m locked out of my room,” she said, having a clear memory of Roland locking her door behind them. He must have his own key.

  “And I’m afraid I can’t help you,” the concierge said with one side of his moustache twitched up in a smirk. “The room is in Mr. Lundi’s name, after all.”

  Some deep, primal instinct guided her movements, and with one coquettish shrug, the black silk shawl dropped off her bare shoulders, and his moustache twitched the other way.

  “You see,” she continued, leaning forward, “I need to make a phone call, and I left my purse in the room.”

  “You have a telephone in your purse?” He was so obviously pleased with the joke, she pretended to be too.

  “No, but I have a bunch of nickels.”

  He used one chubby finger to trace his moustache, perhaps trying to settle it back into place, and with the other hand pushed a gilded candlestick telephone to the front of the desk.

  “You’re welcome to use mine.” He trilled the final word.

  “It’s long distance.”

  “My darling girl, look around you. Do you think we are concerned about the cost of a phone call?”

  Dorothy Lynn was more concerned about the fact that this man would be listening in on her conversation, but time was of the essence. She thanked him with a broad smile and edged as far away as the cord would allow. At the sound of the operator’s voice, she almost asked for long distance, St. Louis, to speak with her sister, but Darlene was not the one to provide absolution. For that, only one voice would do, and within a minute, she heard a very familiar greeting on the line.

  “Hello, Jessup? It’s Dorothy Lynn Dunbar.”

  She waited to hear the click on the line indicating that Mrs. Tully, the operator, had hung up, but heard nothing until Jessup himself said, “Get off the line, Mary Lou.”