by Marilyn Kaye
When he told her, she winced. She barely had enough to pay for one. As she fumbled in her wallet to count out the money, she realized she was feeling a little dizzy. She needed to learn the name of a cocktail that wasn’t quite as strong to order next time.
And as she walked very carefully to the door, she hoped that maybe next time she wouldn’t be buying her own.
Early Friday evening, Pamela emptied her huge cosmetics bag on Sherry’s bedroom desk. Then she opened the magazine she’d brought in with her and pointed to a photo. ‘How about this?’
Sherry wrinkled her nose. ‘It’s a little too much, I think. She looks kind of slutty.’
‘Slutty?! That’s Connie Stevens — she’s beautiful! She’s dating Troy Donahue!’
Sherry stifled a groan. Oh why, why, why had she accepted Pamela’s offer to do her make-up for the premiere? Sometimes being nice had its consequences. What was it Mama often said? The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Of course, Mama would never use the word ‘hell’ — she’d say ‘aitch-ee-double-hockey-sticks’.
She flipped through the pages portraying celebrities on the town and found an illustrated article. ‘I like this.’
‘“The beauty routine of All-American TV star Shelley Fabares”,’ Pamela read out loud. Then she let out a world-weary sigh. ‘Well, if you’re sure that’s what you want.’
‘I’m sure,’ Sherry said, pleased that she wouldn’t have to argue.
Pamela continued to read. ‘“Shelley starts with pressed powder — on the nose, chin, and forehead areas, where skin can get a little shiny.” You know, Sherry, liquid foundation gives much better coverage.’
‘I don’t need that much coverage,’ Sherry said firmly, and pushed her own pressed-powder compact across the desk in Pamela’s direction.
Pamela went to work. ‘Where’s your roommate?’
‘In the laundry room probably. She doesn’t have many clothes, so she’s always having to wash them.’
‘Well, at least she’s clean,’ Pamela commented.
‘True. And that’s practically all I know about her.’
‘That’s so strange,’ Pamela said. ‘You’ve been sharing a room for almost a week now. I know absolutely everything about Allison. She comes from a very hoity-toity family. Real snobs, Allison says. Terribly proper.’
Sherry had guessed as much. It would explain why Allison was such a rebel.
‘It’s funny, I’d never know a girl like that back home,’ Pamela continued. ‘Someone from that kind of family. My folks are like the opposite. I mean, we’re not poor, but my dad’s a car mechanic and my mom sews a lot of our clothes. Not exactly upper-crust types, like Allison’s family. Or yours.’
‘We’re not upper-crust,’ Sherry objected. Would she ever get used to Pamela’s blunt way of speaking? Where she came from, people never talked about social class.
‘We’re not like Allison’s people. I guess we’re what you’d call middle-class. Daddy’s a doctor, and Mama does volunteer work.’ That was about all she was comfortable saying, so she changed the subject. ‘You know, Donna really is a mystery. When I ask her about herself, she totally clams up.’
‘What does she do here? Like, in the evenings, after supper.’
‘She goes down to the lounge to watch TV shows. My Three Sons, Ozzie and Harriet … The only time she ever answered one of my questions was when I asked her what her favourite show was. She said it was Father Knows Best, and she told me she was really sad when it went off the air a few months ago.’
‘All “happy family” shows,’ Pamela mused. ‘Maybe she’s homesick and they remind her of home. OK, time to choose a lipstick. Where’s your dress?’
‘Hanging in the closet.’
Pamela took out the gown, laid it carefully on Sherry’s bed and stepped back to examine it.
‘Well, it’s not what I would have picked, but it’s pretty.’
Sherry thought so too. ‘You know, Donna came with me to the samples closet. I spotted a pink gown right away — pink’s my favourite colour — but Donna said the pink was too pale, that the light blue dress was much better for my complexion, and she was right.’ She cocked her head thoughtfully. ‘That was the longest conversation I’ve ever had with her.’
‘Well, you can wear just about any colour lipstick with light blue,’ Pamela declared. She returned to the desk and picked one up. ‘This is a nice rosy pink, not too pale. Try it.’
Sherry took it uncertainly, wondering if the lipstick might be shoplifted.
‘Do you know where you’re going after the premiere?’ asked Pamela.
Sherry shook her head. ‘All Ricky told me was that he’d pick me up here at the residence at seven thirty. Maybe he doesn’t have any plans to take me out after.’
‘Then you make plans,’ Pamela instructed her. ‘He has to take you out to dinner, that’s the rule.’
‘I don’t know if I’ll want to eat anything,’ Sherry murmured, looking at the dress on the bed. ‘I’m so afraid of spilling something that will stain it.’
Pamela ignored that. ‘And remember the names of places for dancing. If he’s not a member of Le Club, tell him you’d like to go to the Peppermint Lounge.’
‘I don’t even know if I should dance in that dress,’ Sherry said. ‘What if I rip it?’
Pamela rolled her eyes. ‘Oh, don’t be such a worry wart,’ she said, and began gathering up her cosmetics. ‘I have to go and get ready myself. Did I tell you I have a date tonight?’
‘No! Who with?’
‘Well, I met this girl, Brenda, in the dining hall downstairs. She’s a nurse at City Hospital, and her boyfriend’s a doctor there. She’s fixing me up with a friend of his and we’re all going out together.’
Sherry was pleased for her. In her experience, doctors were very respectable. ‘That’s great, maybe he’ll be Mr Right.’
Pamela shrugged. ‘All I know is that doctors make a lot of money.’ She grinned. ‘Hey, maybe I’ll see you at the Peppermint Lounge!’
The little intercom on the wall dinged, and this was followed by the voice of the receptionist. ‘Sherry, you have a phone call.’
Sherry hit a button and said, ‘Thank you.’ Then she pulled on a bathrobe and the girls left the room together.
‘Thanks for the make-up,’ Sherry called after Pamela, and headed to the phone booth at the end of the corridor. It suddenly struck her that this could be Ricky, breaking their date, and it was with some trepidation that she took the receiver off the hook.
‘Hello?’
It was a great relief to hear the voice of her father. ‘Hey, sugar, how are you?’
‘Daddy! I’m fine! Is anything wrong?’
‘No, no, sugar, everything’s just peachy. Your mama and I were just getting a little worried about you. We’ve had one letter and that’s all.’
‘I’m sorry, Daddy. I’ve just been so busy.’
There was a click, the sound of an extension phone being lifted, and another voice trilled, ‘Honey, we just miss you so much!’
‘I miss you too, Mama. But listen, y’all, I can’t really talk now. I’m getting ready to go out.’
‘Where are you going?’ her father wanted to know.
She really should have written them her big news. ‘To the premiere of a movie. I wrote a review of it for the magazine, and it’s going to be published.’
‘Well, isn’t that just fine,’ her father said, but her mother was clearly more interested in something else.
‘And who are you going with? The other apprentice girls?’
‘No, actually I’m going with a boy.’ She continued in a rush, before the questions could start coming. ‘He’s a very nice boy from a good family, he’s the son of the magazine’s publisher, and he’s only acting as my escort, it’s nothing else.’
Her mother made a humph sound. ‘Well, I don’t know if you should write Johnny about this. He could get mighty jealous.’
‘I won’t,’ Sherry said.
‘But I do hope you’re writing him more regularly than you’re writing us,’ she went on.
‘Well, I would,’ Sherry said, ‘if he wrote me. I wrote him the second day I was here, and he still hasn’t written back.’
‘Now, honey, you know men don’t like to write letters,’ her mother said. ‘It’s up to you to keep the relationship moving along in the right direction, you know that.’
‘Yes, Mama, I know. I’ll write him tomorrow, I promise. Now, I really have to go, y’all, and I promise to write you too and tell you all about it.’
But her father wasn’t ready to let her go. ‘Sugar, you sure you’re OK? You sound different.’
‘Different how?’
‘I don’t know, just different. Now, don’t you go be letting New York City change my sweet girl.’
‘I won’t, Daddy, and I really have to go now. Bye-bye. Bye, Mama!’
Having finally freed herself, she went running back to her room, where she turned on the radio and went into the bathroom. She still had to get her rollers out.
As she unwound the locks of hair from the tubes of wire filled with bristles, she thought about what her father had just said. How could she have changed in less than a week here? True, she was having experiences she’d never had before. She was meeting people unlike anyone she’d ever known too. The other interns of course. But also people like Caroline Davison. Women who worked real jobs.
Sherry wasn’t sure how old Caroline was, but she would guess early thirties. By now she knew the editor lived alone, in an apartment on the Upper West Side. And her job seemed awfully important to her. She frequently stayed late at the Gloss office, and sometimes she even took work home.
Why wasn’t she married? Sherry wondered. Surely a woman so pretty and charming could get a husband. Maybe the job took up so much of her time that she didn’t have the opportunity to meet anyone. But then why work at a job like that? It was a puzzle to her.
She was just teasing up the crown of her hair with a rat-tail comb when she heard a rap on the door.’
‘It’s me, Allison.’
‘Come on in,’ she called from the bathroom.
‘I wanted to see you in your dress,’ Allison said.
‘I’m just about to put it on,’ Sherry told her. She came out from the bathroom and took a girdle out of her dresser drawer. As she struggled to get into it, Allison winced. ‘
‘Why are you wearing that? You’re not fat.’
‘Mama says nice girls always wear girdles. So they won’t, you know, jiggle.’
‘I guess it also serves as a kind of chastity belt,’ Allison said. ‘A guy would have a hard time getting that off of you.’
Sherry laughed. ‘I never thought of it that way. Don’t you ever wear a girdle?’
‘Oh, my mother has tried a zillion times to force me into one, but I absolutely refuse. And it’s not like I have enough meat on my bones to jiggle.’
It was true — Allison was very slim. But — ‘How do you keep your stockings up?’ Sherry asked as she began attaching hosiery to the garter clips hanging from the girdle.
‘Don’t wear them,’ Allison replied.
‘Well, neither do I, during the day in the summer. But when you’re wearing a party dress, don’t you feel naked without stockings?’
‘I never wear party dresses.’
Sherry shook her head in wonderment. The girl really was a rebel. Gingerly she lifted the dress and stepped into it. Allison zipped her up.
‘You do look nice,’ she admitted.
‘Wait, I’m not finished.’ Sherry fished through her jewellery box and extracted a string of pearls that she put around her neck.
‘There. Now what do you think?’
‘You could be going to one of those debutante balls I refused to attend in Boston,’ Allison declared.
Sherry had a feeling this was as much of a compliment as she could expect from Miss Anti-fashion. She studied herself in the mirror.
It was a lovely gown, and it fit her perfectly — snug from the bosom to the waist, and then it flared out almost in a bell shape. The delicate white lace at the neckline stood out against her tan. She could have stepped right out of the pages of Gloss.
‘I hope I’ll be able to dance in this,’ she murmured. At that very moment the radio was blasting Chubby Checker.
‘Let’s do the twist…’
‘Try it,’ Allison suggested.
Sherry went into some careful Twist moves, moving back and forth, turning her shoulders and her knees in opposite directions. Just then Donna walked in the door. For one very brief moment, Sherry actually got a glimpse of a smile.
‘Hi, Donna,’ Allison said. ‘I gotta go.’
‘I can leave if you want,’ Donna said.
‘Don’t be silly,’ Sherry said, trying not to sound impatient. Donna’s antisocial behaviour was beginning to get on her nerves. ‘This is your room too, Donna.’
‘And I’m heading down to the Village,’ Allison told them.
‘Still looking for your Bob Dylan guy?’ Sherry asked.
‘Yep, and tonight I’m going to find him. See you guys.’
After she left, Donna sat down on her bed. ‘You sure you don’t mind me being here?’
‘Donna!’ Sherry exclaimed in exasperation, and then closed her eyes and counted to ten. Calmer, she smiled. ‘I like having people around when I’m getting ready to go out. It reminds me of home. My little sister always came in my room and watched while I was getting ready for a date with Johnny.’
‘That’s nice,’ Donna said.
‘Do you have any brothers or sisters?’ Sherry asked.
She thought there was a second of hesitation before Donna said, ‘No.’
‘Only child, huh?’
There was no reply. Sherry took another look at herself in the mirror and frowned. ‘Do I look OK? Something seems wrong.’
‘It’s the necklace,’ Donna blurted out.
‘What?’
‘Those pearls. They’re too much with all that lace.’
Sherry gazed at her reflection thoughtfully. Then she reached around to the back of her neck and unclasped the string of pearls.
‘You’re right!’ she said. ‘Anything else?’
‘Do you have any earrings?’ Donna asked. ‘You could use something to balance the decoration on the neckline.’
Sherry went back into the jewellery box, and took out some fake pearl drop clip-ons. She held them to her ears and looked at Donna questioningly. Donna nodded.
‘And maybe something more,’ Donna said. ‘Wait a minute.’ She went to the closet, took out a bag and emptied a pile of fabric scraps on to her bed.
‘I found these in the lounge. Someone was sewing and she was going to throw these scraps away,’ she murmured as she examined the pieces. Then, ‘Here!’ she cried in triumph. It was a scrap of a patterned piece, tiny blue dots on white. She picked up a pair of scissors and cut a strip. Then she took a needle and thread from the bag.
Moments later, she showed Sherry a neat, tiny formed bow. ‘Do you have a bobby pin?’
‘Here.’
Donna took it, and neatly inserted it into the fold on the back of the bow. Then she pushed back a lock of Sherry’s hair on the right side and fixed the bow just above her ear. ‘OK. Now look.’
Sherry went back to the mirror. The blue dots on the bow matched the blue of the dress. ‘It’s perfect! Donna, you have a great eye!’
Donna shrugged, but Sherry could have sworn she saw pleasure in her eyes. She took another lingering look at her reflection. If only Johnny could see her like this …
The intercom dinged. ‘Sherry, you have a visitor.’
Sherry pressed a button. ‘I’m coming!’ Quickly she put on her freshly polished white low-heeled slippers and picked up the little white clutch bag, another loan from the closet. At the door, she turned back to Donna. ‘Thanks for your help.’
An actual smile — brief; but real — cros
sed Donna’s face. ‘Have a nice time.’
When she got off the elevator she spotted Ricky right away, and despite her less-than-positive feelings about him, she was impressed. If he’d been handsome before, in ordinary clothes, he looked really smart now, in a black tuxedo with shiny lapels. As she approached him, he raised his eyebrows in approval.
‘Nice.’
He could have expressed this more elegantly, but she accepted the praise. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘And you look very nice too.’
At least he had the kind of manners she expected from a well-brought-up boy. He took her arm, escorted her to the door and opened it for her.
He didn’t have to open the door of the car. A uniformed chauffeur stood at attention just by the side of the long white limousine, and practically bowed as he opened the door with a flourish.
Sherry had been in a limousine before. For the prom, Johnny had pitched in with three friends for a limo to take them to the senior prom, and it had been big enough for the four couples to ride comfortably. This limousine was just as big, and it was only for her and Ricky.
And it didn’t appear to be rented. Ricky tapped on the glass window that separated them from the front of the limo, and it magically came down.
‘We’re going to Sixth Avenue and 51st, James. Radio City.’
‘Yes, Mr Hartnell,’ the man replied.
She shouldn’t have been surprised to learn that the family had a private limousine. Pamela had secured information on the Hartnells from one of the secretaries at Gloss. They were fabulously rich, with a penthouse on Park Avenue, a summer house on Long Island and apartments in Paris and London. Ricky had gone to the best private schools in Manhattan — schools, plural, because he’d been thrown out of several, for poor grades and various acts of mischief. Despite all this, his father had been able to use his influence to get him into an Ivy League university, but Ricky had refused to go. So instead he was working at Hartnell Publications, the company he was destined to inherit some day.
‘Working’ was an exaggeration, Sherry thought. From what she’d observed, he came in late to the office (when he came in at all) and spent most of the day reading magazines or wandering around looking for girls to flirt with.
