The Winter of Her Discontent (11 page)

“It just seems that way,” said Izzie.

Olive ashed her cigarette into a silver stand and leaned toward me. “Izzie, Paulette, and I did a tour of
Private Ryan's Wife
about five years ago. We'd been bosom friends ever since.” I knew the show. It had run for eighteen months. You couldn't do a tour for that long without ending up related to someone.

“Those were the days,” said Olive. “No shortages, no gas rationing. You were put up in decent hotels.”

“And the men were still around,” said Izzie. “Don't forget that.”

I grinned at my lap as they recounted the good old days of theater before the war. It had been a different time. When the war came, theater budgets were slashed, touring shows were cut, even summer stock—that little bit of Gomorrah in upstate New York—had started to vanish, since no one had the gas to travel to see the shows anymore. Sure there was still work in the city, but that had begun to lose its luster. Shows couldn't get financing, politics was taking over the stage, and actors were heading west to Hollywood. Even the repeated attempts to add streetlights in front of the theaters to make up for the diminished limelight had been turned down. It used to be that dark was a way to describe the night a theater was closed. Thanks
to the blackout, it had become a way to describe the constant state of Broadway.

But none of that meant much when faced with a death. I imagined Paulette's friends would've gladly given up the theater if it meant they could have their pal back.

“How did you meet Paulette?” I asked Zelda.

“I started rooming with Olive and Izzie when Paulette went west and didn't meet the woman herself until she returned a month ago.”

I was surprised by that. I'd assumed all three woman had known Paulette—and one another—for a long time.

Zelda tapped her cigarette into the silver ashtray. “I thought for sure she'd want to kick me out when she returned to New York, but she was so gracious about my living there. She's the one who got me the audition with Walter. I don't think he would've looked at me twice if it wasn't for her.”

“You must all miss her terribly,” I said. “And to have to start rehearsal with someone new so soon after…”

“That's show biz,” said Izzie.

“No, that's Walter Friday,” said Olive. “He can't afford to shut down for a day, you know that. His mother could die front row center and we'd keep rehearsing around the corpse just to make sure we opened on time.”

They mused on that for a moment, until the black humor left their faces and tight, grim smiles moved in. “It's easier this way,” said Izzie. “We've barely had time to think about what's happened.”

“And Ruby helps,” said Olive. “The way she walks in here like she's the queen of England demanding our attention. She's a pistol. I knew she'd be a good fit. Thank God Walter took my advice.” So Ruby had had an in on the job. I hadn't realized that.

“But she's no Paulette,” said Izzie.

“No one could be,” said Olive.

They slipped back into silence, the ghost of their dead friend hovering between them.

“I'm sorry,” I said.

Izzie put her hand on mine. “Don't be, Rosie. We have to talk about her at some point. Ignoring what happened doesn't make it go away. One of these days we're all going to have to wake up and admit that she's not back in Hollywood ignoring our phone calls because she's too busy going to fabulous parties. She's gone.”

A whistle blew somewhere in the building, and the stage manager's voice rose to a glass-breaking pitch and announced, “Two minutes.”

The women stabbed out their cigarettes in the lobby ashtray, and I followed them, silently, back into the theater.

A
FTER REHEARSAL
J
AYNE LEFT THE
theater so quickly that she was gone before I even remembered she wasn't speaking to me. She wasn't at the Shaw House when I got there; nor was there any sign that she'd come and gone, so I kicked off my rehearsal clothes and took a shower. As the water washed away my aches and pains, I thought about Paulette's pals and the grief they were carrying with them. How would I have felt if Jayne were killed? That was one loss I'd never had to imagine, but now that I tried to picture it, it seemed incomprehensible. How much worse it would be if it happened now, when I'd never gotten a chance to apologize to her.

I already knew what it was like to regret how I'd treated someone. I didn't want to feel that way again.

I rehearsed what I'd say to Jayne. A “sorry” wasn't sufficient. What I'd said wasn't a one-time transgression she'd forget and move on from. It was one in a series of missteps I'd made as of late, and I owed it to her (and myself) to figure out what was the matter with me.

Back in the room, Churchill lay sprawled across my dirty clothes, his tail dancing in the air like a charmed snake he was attempting to hypnotize me with. I resisted his voodoo and sat on the edge of my bed.

“Problem one,” I told him. “Jack.” I was in limbo as far as he was concerned: first, because I didn't know the status of our relationship, and second, because I didn't know where—or even if—he was. Did I give up and grieve, or did I hope and pray? Right now I was doing both, and neither was accomplishing anything.

Churchill's tail danced in rhythm to my contemplation, his sleepy amber eyes on the brink of closing. What could I do? Write Corporal Harrington and once again face the censor's black lines? Or…

I rose from the bed and put on my robe. I located Corporal Harrington's censored letter and took it across the hall. A radio sizzled in the background, its signal wavering as it fought to convey news from across the ocean.

I knocked once. “Harriet? It's Rosie.”

Harriet poked her head out the door and smiled. “Long time no see. Come on in.”

Harriet Rosenfeld was the go-to girl for anything war-related at the Shaw House. A talented actress with an appetite for things on the far left, she'd become less and less interested in theater the longer the war dragged on. Part of that was because she was Jewish and growing increasingly anxious about what was going on abroad. The other part was due to her fiancé, Harold Levanthal, a soldier who also wrote for
Stars & Stripes
. I suspected he was sharing with her a side of the war the rest of us weren't privy to, and the enormity of what was really going on was too tremendous for her to pass her days pretending to care about other things.

Harriet closed the door quickly behind me, and I took in the room. What had once been a space full of news clippings, books, and other war-related material was now bare. Harriet's belongings were confined to two boxes and a trunk neatly stacked beneath the window.

It used to be that when a girl left the Shaw House it was because she was either giving up or getting married (often both). Nowadays the sudden appearance of a suitcase followed the unwelcome arrival of a telegram or phone call, notifying the recipient that her brother, father, or lover wasn't coming back after all.

Harriet had gotten engaged the previous December, and the thought that her sweet-faced Harold was gone made me gasp.

“Rosie. What's the matter?”

Death was getting too close. It could happen to anyone.

“Sit down,” she told me. “You look pale.” She led me to the bed and pushed me forward until my head was between my legs. “Deep breaths.”

“I'm okay,” I said. I struggled to sit upright. “The question is, how are you?”

Her eyes scanned the sky looking for the trick in the question. “I'm fine. Why?”

I nodded at the luggage.

“Oh, I'm not…Harold's not…I got a traveling gig, that's all. Belle said she would put my things in storage, but she needed the room.”

It took me a minute to find my voice. “Congratulations. Those jobs are few and far between.”

“Thanks.” She noticed the letter in my hand, and I could see her absorbing the thick, black lines. “War censor?”

“What else.” I handed her the page and she scanned the few unaltered words. In addition to being more informed than Edward R. Murrow, Harriet was very skilled at figuring out what the war censor deleted. A number of the girls in the house regularly relied on her to decipher their mail.

“Whoever did this was thorough.” She held the page to the light and shook her head. “I'm sorry, Rosie, but there's no hope of getting anything out of this one. It's about your MIA boyfriend, right?” I nodded. I hadn't told Harriet about Jack, but then I hadn't told Ruby or Minnie either.

“I didn't expect you'd be able to figure it out, but I was wondering if you had any ideas about how I could get around the censor. I need to know what he said.”

“There are a couple of options, but they all take some planning. They easiest one is to devise a code. That's what Harold and I do.”

And what Jayne had suggested. Sort of. “But he wouldn't know it.”

“Not necessarily. Most of the outgoing mail isn't read—it's what's coming into the States that the government's worried about. What I would do is write him a letter that looks as innocuous as possible—introduce yourself like you're a new pen pal. So much of that stuff's
going overseas that I doubt anyone would take a good hard look at it, assuming they opened it to begin with. Then, in the letter, tell him the problem and suggest a solution.”

“You think that would work?”

“Absolutely. Worst case scenario, he doesn't get your letter and you're back to square one.” My mind rumbled with possibilities for espionage. Use numbers instead of letters? Communicate the real information using the first word of each sentence?

“So what's the gig?” I asked.

“USO camp shows.”

“Really? Like with Bob Hope?”

“I should be so lucky.” She rolled a pair of trousers into a tight ball and stuffed them into a small valise on her bed.

“I'm surprised you're going,” I said. “You don't strike me as the touring show type.”

“I just feel like I need to be doing something to help. I don't have the stomach to nurse or the patience to join the WAACs—I figured this was the next best thing.” This was her official line, prepared for when casual acquaintances asked her what she was up to. She lowered her voice and stepped closer to me. “We're still working on our USO story.” She had started doing research on a story for Harold some months before. “I decided I needed to go into the field.”

“Well…good luck I guess.”

“Thanks.” She wore cat's-eye specs and her brown eyes danced behind their thick lenses. “You might be disappointed, Rosie.”

“About what?”

“If I've learned nothing else from this war, it's that the military isn't in the habit of sharing information. Even if you figure out what the letter says, it doesn't mean you'll find out what happened to Jack.”

“I don't really have any choice though, do I? This is the only connection I have to him right now.”

“If it were me…” She cut herself off, recognizing that indicting someone for not behaving as you would during a time of crisis wasn't exactly appropriate.

“Say whatever you were going to say.”

She looked down her glasses at me. “If the only thing keeping you from finding him is distance, then maybe what you should be concentrating on is how to eliminate
that
problem.”

The thing was, it wasn't the only thing keeping me from finding Jack. If I could hop on a plane tomorrow and talk to Corporal Harrington face-to-face, I still wouldn't know where Jack was. After all, the navy couldn't figure it out, and they were the military.

“I think I'll stick to the mail for now.”

She shrugged. “If you need anything else, you can always write me. I know how hard it is.” The picture of Harold was the last thing she had to pack. She placed him facedown, on the cushioning provided by a pink satin evening gown, and closed the suitcase. “And if you ever feel like getting out of here and going on the road, I hear the USO shows are a kick.”

“Thanks,” I told her. “I'll keep that in mind.”

 

I worked on the letter to Corporal Harrington for two hours. The code was as simple as possible, just in case I couldn't remember what I'd asked him to do. The first letter in each word would be part of a larger sentence of what he was trying to tell me. I asked him not use to Jack's name, just in case. And to send the new letter immediately.

Having come up with a solution to at least one of my problems, I felt marginally better. The others, however, still hovered. I had hurt Jayne. I knew even less about what was going on with Walter Friday and Vinnie Garvaggio, and what I did know wouldn't do anything to get Al off. If my life were a baseball game, I'd be very close to out.

Churchill stopped grooming himself and cocked his head toward the door. We both watched the turning knob as though we were captives eagerly awaiting the return of our jailer.

“Hiya,” said Jayne. She'd been crying—that much was apparent. Spider-webs of mascara rippled beneath her eyes. “I thought you'd be asleep.”

“You mean you were hoping.”

She shrugged in confession and pulled the rest of her body into the room.

“Where have you been?”

“Tony's. Where else have I got to go?” It was the sad truth of our existence. Without each other we really had nothing.

“I was a big jerk before. I forgot that while this show might mean nothing to me, it's everything to you.”

She flinched.

“And I'm apparently still putting my foot in my mouth.”

“It's just that you're making me feel like I'm a fool for putting any stock in it. How can I possibly think this show will amount to anything when you think it's a disaster?”

“It's not a disaster. I am.” I'd said it—the thing that had been eluding me since I first got cast in the corps de ballet. “I hate failing, Jayne. I failed Jack. I'm failing Al. And now I'm trapped in a role I don't deserve and dragging the whole chorus down, and even though everyone knows it, no one will do anything about it.” Since I'd started performing, I'd pictured myself as some star in the making and those around me—Jayne, Ruby, whoever—never quite reaching the heights I would. It was egotistical and awful. But just as terrible things weren't supposed to happen to me, in the movie of my life my friends were the supporting cast and I was the leading lady. Friday's show had turned that whole thing topsy-turvy, and now I had to consider the very real possibility that I was destined to a life of disappointment and mediocrity.

“You're hardly the only one who doesn't belong in that chorus, Rosie. The whole thing's higgledy-piggledy.”

“Thanks, I guess.”

“What I mean is, you're not a dancer. We both know that. At least not the kind of dancer they need for this show. That doesn't mean you're a failure. I'm never going to get cast as Lady Macbeth or get the chance to play Hedda Gabler. It's just the way our talents go. It's nice in a way. I like that we're not both good at the same things. Could you imagine having to compete with each other for every part?”

“No.” I took a deep breath and squeezed her tiny hand in mine. “Do you think I should quit?”

She tucked a stray lock of hair behind my ear. “It's up to you. But if someone is setting this show up to fail, I think it's only fair that you figure out why.”

I nodded at the floor. Al was important, not my ego. Churchill tiptoed across our laps, then circled behind us, where he settled with his rump next to Jayne's.