The Winter of Her Discontent (13 page)

I hadn't realized when we entered what a mess he was. His suit was rumpled, his shirt untucked, and his pants had clearly been stolen from a much larger man. “It could work,” he said. “It could definitely work.”

“Do you want to clue us in on what's going on?” asked Jayne.

“Olive Wright is in the hospital.”

So that's what he'd been talking about. “We saw her this morning,” I said. “At Paulette's funeral.”

“Yeah, well shortly thereafter she got mowed down by a car. She broke both legs, her pelvis, and her collarbone.”

“Wow.” I stepped backward and sank into a chair. My legs began to ache in sympathy. “Poor Olive.”

“Poor Olive? Poor me! This was the final blow to this production. Until you girls walked in here, I thought we were closing down for good.”

“And we changed that how?” asked Jayne.

“I need a new Sue Kane. Rosie here is the right size, so I figure we'll give it a whirl.” To illustrate his point, he took my hand, pulled me out of the chair, and spun me around. As I orbited him, I caught a whiff of his afternoon cocktail.

I freed myself from his hold and backed away from the stink. “No offense, Mr. Friday, but I'm getting cast because I fit in the costume? Why not just hold another audition?”

“He'll never let me. I know him. And he won't give me the scratch to have new costumes made. No, you're perfect, and as an added bonus, the dance Frau will be thrilled to get rid of you.” His pan was pink with drink and glee. “Be a pal, won't you? Most girls would love to be part of one of my shows, and you're not just getting a role—you're getting a lead.”

There was nothing to consider. Of course I'd do it—the part would guarantee me more access to Paulette's friends. Plus, I could free myself from the humiliation of the corps de ballet.

“You're right,” I told Friday. “This is an opportunity I can't afford to pass up.”

F
RIDAY GAVE ME A SCRIPT,
a call time, and a drunken kiss just south of my nose. With nothing more to do, Jayne and I hoofed it out of the theater and into Horn and Hardart, where we emptied our pockets until we had enough coin for two cups of joe. Once we had a table, we turned our attention to the nagging question of the day: What was going on at the Sarah Bernhardt?

“Clearly Friday's desperate,” said Jayne.

I poured condensed milk into my java, then passed the creamer to Jayne. “While I know you're right, for the sake of my ego can we pretend like this was a savvy move on his part?”

“I don't mean about casting you. I mean about keeping the production going.”

“Too true.”

“Think about what's happened in the last week.” Jayne counted off the calamities on her cutlery. “His lead actress is murdered, leaving him short an actress and in the papers.”

“Check.”

She slid her knife forward. “His dance corps is cast, but it's clearly not the group of dancers he thought it was going to be.”

“You're in it, aren't you? You're hardly chopped liver.” Jayne raised an eyebrow, and I finally understood why someone would cast a bunch of chumps and one good hoofer. Jayne was there to make the rest of us look bad. Even the least discerning audience member would have to realize she was head and shoulders above everyone
else. “Maureen did make it sound like someone was setting her up. Who would do that, though?”

“Who do you think?” Jayne leaned toward me and lowered her voice. “Garvaggio.”

“But why? He's got himself a great deal going: a space to use however he pleases, and a desperate producer putting money in his pocket.”

Jayne outlined my errors on her placemat. “He can't get his money back unless the production makes money. Maybe he finally read the script and realized it was hopeless.”

“He's had plenty of time to figure that out. This sabotage is recent. Something else had to have happened to motivate him.”

We left the automat and headed down Seventh Avenue, toward Times Square. It was going on seven thirty, and in front of the Paramount a long line of kids hummed with excitement. Lobby cards told us that there were two reasons for their anticipation: Babe Ruth was making a personal appearance to try to inspire kids to help out with the war effort and there was an evening showing of an MGM Technicolor cartoon called
Who Killed Who?
Judging from the poster, Babe Ruth had better hope he was the opening act; the cartoon featured a talking dog
and
Santa Claus.

Jayne's eyes drifted across the street. “Don't we know her?”

I searched the darkening night for the woman in question. “Her who?”

She pointed at a tall brunette with her arm wrapped around a man in dress blues. It was Zelda. I waved at her, and she returned the greeting. Her head bobbed right and left, and when she was sure it was safe, she dragged the soldier across the road and greeted us in person.

“You're Jayne, aren't you?” asked Zelda. My pal nodded and Zelda introduced herself and thrust a black-gloved hand her way. The ensemble she'd donned at the funeral had been topped by a calf-length black mink coat and a funny little hat that indiscriminately sprouted
netting, ribbons, and flowers. “You're doing a fantastic job in the corps. It's a shame you don't have a solo.”

“Thanks,” said Jayne. She was trying not to look impressed by Zelda, but I could tell it was a losing battle. “That's some coat.”

“This old thing?” Zelda winked and directed a graceful arm toward her companion. “By the way, this is Captain…”

“George Pomeroy,” I finished for her. Paulette's fiancé stood at attention, his face much less sullen than it had been that morning.

“That's right.” Zelda's forehead crinkled. “Do you know each other?”

“We met at Paulette's rooming house,” said the captain.

“Of course. I forgot all about that. I've been showing George around the city. We're headed to Longchamps for a bite.” The familiarity she'd shown when they were across the road was gone. Putting her arm in his seemed like the last thing she wanted to do. “Did you hear about Olive?”

I nodded. “We just came from the theater and got the news from Walter. Have you seen her?”

Zelda stepped closer and lowered her voice. “I was with her when she got hit.”

“What happened?” I asked.

Zelda brushed a spray of netting out of her eyes. George watched the gesture with an odd kind of longing. Did he remember Paulette doing the same thing, or was he wishing he could be that gaudy little hat? “It was the strangest thing. We'd left the church after the service and started walking uptown to find a cab. We had a walk signal and were crossing Third Avenue, when this car came out of nowhere and slammed into her.”

“You're lucky you weren't hit,” I said.

“Tell me about it. I have these shoes to thank for that.” She thrust a black Ferragamo pump at me. The T-strap wasn't fastened. A part or parts were missing. “The buckle broke right before we crossed, so I bent down to fix it. Had I been beside her, who knows what would've happened.”

“Those are shoes worth holding on to,” said Jayne.

Her foot retreated into line with her other shoe. “So you say. And to think: moments before I was livid that I'd spent fifty bucks on broken shoes.”

I think I gasped at the price. For fifty bucks I could've gotten five pairs of shoes and still had enough money to get lit.

Jayne covered for my faux pas. “So did the car stop?” she asked.

“Heavens no. Whoever it was kept on driving. Thank goodness George came along. He was the only one who had the peace of mind to get her out of the road and call an ambulance.”

George shifted his attention to the pavement. He didn't like being singled out for bravery. Pity he joined the military.

“Is Olive going to be all right?” asked Jayne.

“Eventually. But she's going to be laid up for six weeks or more. She's out at New York City Hospital.”

“On Welfare Island?” I asked. That was a hike. I was surprised she wasn't someplace closer by.

“Her pop works out there, and he insisted she convalesce somewhere where he could keep an eye on her.” So that explained Olive's immaculate appearance—she had a fat family. Maybe she spread the wealth around and helped out her friends a little too. “I don't know what Walter's going to do. Rumor has it that he might bump Minnie into her part and recast Myra.”

Jayne elbowed me. When I didn't respond to her prompt, she cleared her throat and smiled up at Zelda. “Actually it looks like Rosie's going to step in for Olive.”

“For real?” Zelda's voice was high and squeaky, much like the throng of children we'd just passed. “That's swell, really truly swell. I know Olive will be thrilled you're the one taking her spot.”

“It's got to be better than the corps,” I said.

 

We went back to the Shaw House to plan out how we wanted to spend what would undoubtedly be one of our last free evenings. I
was leaning toward staying in. Jayne was pushing for bowling at the Radio City Lanes. Since the games cost more than a quarter a piece, my suggestion was winning.

“Do you think she was on the make?” I asked Jayne.

“Who?”

“Zelda. She and Captain Pomeroy looked awfully chummy. And when she stuck out her leg and showed us her broken shoe, I swear to God his eyes almost popped out of his head.”

Jayne unzipped her black dress and eased it past her girdle. “What's it matter if she was? If I'd been engaged to someone who was seeing so many other people on the side, I'd probably leap at the first chance I got for a date too.”

“I'm not questioning his morality; I'm questioning hers.”

Jayne grimaced and unfastened her girdle. “Any woman who can pay fifty bucks for shoes doesn't play by the same rules as you and me.”

“Fair enough.” I spread out the newspaper on my bed and steeled myself for my daily game of what awful thing has happened now. The new navy casualty numbers were out: 24,271 dead since Pearl Harbor. The city was buying livestock to provide meat for public institutions. We'd knocked out fourteen Japanese planes that had tried to bomb New Guinea. And New York's immigration authorities were holding a dozen French sailors accused of deserting the French navy.

I flipped forward to the theater news. Another war drama,
Men in Shadow
, had opened at the Morosco. There was going to be a special benefit matinee of
The Skin of Our Teeth
for the Stage Relief Fund. And here was the thorn in Walter Friday's side: an article cataloging the latest problems plaguing his production called, “Murder and Mayhem: Should
Goin' South
Be Renamed
Goin' to Open?
”

“What do you think Garvaggio's using the Bernhardt for?” I asked Jayne.

She replaced her dress with her kimono and examined the condition of the polish on her fingernails. “The only thing that makes sense is storage.”

“How do you figure?” That was the thing about Jayne. When you got past the voice and the body, she was smart as a whip.

“It's a huge building,” she said. “You don't want access to a building that size and in that location unless you have something you want to put in it.”

I'd entertained the idea that the basement of the Bernhardt had been transformed into a gentleman's club and casino, not that either venture was illegal, but it was much more exciting than picturing rooms full of boxes of stolen merchandise.

“So what's he storing?” I asked. “It has to be something particular, something he couldn't store anywhere else. That means it demands either a space the size of the Bernhardt or the location of the building.”

Jayne shrugged. “Beats me.”

“I bet Tony knows.”

She didn't respond. She'd turned her attention to removing unwieldy bits of hair from Churchill's back.

“Do you think he'd tell you?”

“Doubtful.” Clearly, wads of feline fur were the most fascinating thing she had ever encountered. It was the only explanation for how she was acting.

“Is it too hush hush?”

“No, but Vinnie Garvaggio is.” She stopped grooming Churchill and attempted to flick away the hair that remained on her fingers. “I'm not supposed to say his name in front of Tony again.”

I felt like I'd walked in halfway through a movie. In German. Without subtitles. “Since when?”

“Since the night we went to see
They Got Me Covered
.”

No wonder she'd been in such a bad mood. She hadn't been the only person handing out ultimatums.

“That doesn't seem very fair. I mean, you're in the guy's show. Surely Tony doesn't expect you not to talk about that.”

Churchill became her focus again. If this kept up, I was going to shave him. “You know Tony,” she said.

“Not really. No.” Tony B.—big, imposing, and illegally connected—had never been one of my favorite people. But when your best friend's in love, you don't question her choice in men, not unless you want to hand over a free ticket for her to do the same to you. “What am I missing here, Jayne?”

She dropped her head and addressed Churchill's rump. “He doesn't know I'm in the show.”

“But you said you asked him about Garvaggio.”

She lifted her head and reluctantly met my eyes. “He talked, I listened. He told me Garvaggio was bad news and that I couldn't take the job. He wanted me as far away from him as humanly possible.”

“So then why did you take the job?”

Jayne's mouth dropped open in astonishment. “He doesn't own me, and he doesn't have the right to tell me what to do!”

I raised my hands in surrender. “Easy. Nobody's saying he does. But if you believe that, then why did you lie to him and tell him you're not in the show?” She didn't need to tell me her reasoning. It was obvious. Jayne wanted to assert herself, but she didn't want to suffer the consequences of her actions, especially if one of those consequences was losing Tony for good. It was one thing for her to dump him, quite another for him to give her the gate.

“He's going to find out,” I said.

Jayne left the bed and went to her bureau. “I'll use a stage name.”

“Isn't he going to be a little suspicious when all of your weekends are suddenly occupied?”

“I'll tell him before that happens.”

“Really?”

She gave the mirror a tight smile in response. If she didn't answer me, I had nothing to hold her to.

“It's your life,” I told her.

 

The next morning I left for rehearsal before Jayne so I could have some quiet time to get my head together. The other actresses were
already assembled in the theater, though Friday hadn't shown up yet. Zelda was performing vocal warm-ups off in a corner. Izzie sat in the house knitting.

She looked up at me and waved. I grinned her way and plopped myself in the seat beside her. “Zelda told me you're the new Olive,” she said.

“Until Friday wises up, that seems to be the case.” I struggled for a segue to Paulette. “That funeral was something else yesterday.”

Izzie's knitting needles moved with remarkable speed, turning a bundle of navy blue yarn into a narrow cylinder. “Wasn't it? I felt so close to Paulette all morning. I really felt like she was there.”

“It's amazing how many friends she had.”

“I know. I told Zelda that if I kicked tomorrow, I'd be lucky if a dozen people showed up to see me off.” Onstage Zelda's voice rose and fell to “Do Re Me.”

I chose my next words carefully. “I didn't realize Paulette had been married twice. And widowed. That must've been awful for her.”

Izzie's needles stopped. “She didn't like to talk about it. Paulette didn't handle grief very well.”