The Winter of Her Discontent (7 page)

“No thanks.”

“Are you one of the hoofers?”

“I was until I managed to trip over my own feet.”

She lit a Virginia Round and took a long drag. “Well, if it's any consolation, things are lousy in the other rehearsal room too.”

“No injuries though, right?”

“Just a script that should be put out of its misery. I'm Zelda DeMarcos.”

“Rosie Winter.”

She shook my hand like we were sealing a deal and sat beside me. “Wait a second—Rosie Winter? I know that name…weren't you in
In the Dark
?”

I looked at the ground. “I see my reputation precedes me.”

“I meant that as a good thing. You were fantastic.”

“How do you know? I did only one show.”

“Yeah, but it was the performance I saw. No offense, but it's criminal that you're in the dance chorus.” I didn't correct her. She was right—it
was
criminal.

I grinned at my lap. “Aren't you supposed to be inside?”

“We're on a break so I went for a walk.”

“And made a new friend?”

She winked at me. “Ran into an old one. Want me to hail you a cab?”

“At this point I'd take a lame horse and a rickety cart.” She peered down the road. A hired hack passed us, and she waved at its redheaded blur of a passenger. “You were one of Paulette's friends, right?” I asked.

Her wry smile vanished. There was a glint of distrust in her eyes. “Sure. Everyone in the show was.”

“But you and those other two women were particularly close to her, weren't you?”

She nodded.

I scrambled for an explanation for why I'd brought Paulette up. “I live at the rooming house she used to live in and she was always sort of an…idol of mine. I'm just sick over what happened.”

That did it. The distrust left her. “You're at the Shaw House?”

“The one and only.”

Zelda smiled. “She loved that place.”

I hummed a response that was meant to imply that I did too. “At least they caught whoever did it. That must be a small consolation.” She shrugged and I realized the stupidity of the comment. When someone you loved was taken away, there was no such thing as a consolation. “Did you know the guy who did it?”

A yellow came into view. Zelda rose to her feet and waved the cab to the curb. “Your chariot, madam.”

“Thanks,” I said. She took my arm and helped me hobble inside. “It was nice talking to you.”

“You too.” She watched as we pulled away, her face giving me no indication that she'd even heard my question.

 

The cab I couldn't afford landed in front of the Shaw House. I tossed the driver the last of my lettuce and watched irritably as he straightened the bill before sliding it into his pocket. His money stored, he cleared the meter and waited in silence for…something.

“This is the place, right lady?” His accent was standard Brooklynese, turning each of his
t
's into
d
's.

“I need a little help,” I told him.

He threw his arms open wide and looked down at his chest. “Wish I could do something for you, but I got a bad back.”

“Bet it would feel better if your wallet was a little lighter.”

“Hard to say.”

I threw my shoulder against the back door and forced it open with a groan. The light snow had turned into an early spring ice storm. My good leg tested the pavement before committing to standing on it.

“I ain't got all day,” said the cabbie.

“That's what you think.”

He pulled away in a squeal of tires. I saluted him with a Bronx cheer.

A million years later, I climbed the steps and entered the Shaw House. Paulette's picture watched me in silent judgment as I crossed the foyer and entered the lobby. I probably would've cut my losses and collapsed onto the sofa, except someone was already sitting there.

He was the kind of man I would've instantly thought of as handsome except for two things: his dress uniform and his somber expression. Since the war, I wasn't used to encountering men under fifty unless they were 4-F or fortunately associated. Sure, I saw enlisted men every day, but once they donned their uniforms and committed their lives, they became a mirage. The minute you approached them, you knew they would disappear bit by bit until the only thing left was a memory.

“Hiya,” I said to this one, in case he proved to be real. He stopped playing with his hat long enough to return my greeting with a nod. I started to hobble across the lobby and toward the stairs but stopped before I was halfway there. I searched the lobby for signs of Belle, our housemother. Usually if there was a man within fifty feet of the house, she was standing at the ready to protect our collective virtue.

“Does Belle know you're here?”

He nodded at his lap. “She went to get something.”

If I hadn't been hurt, I would've gone on my way without thinking any further about it. Maybe it was because I was already vulnerable, or because I was forced to move at a rate normally reserved for two-toed tree sloths—whatever the reason, my brain fixated on the man on the sofa and rather than accepting that he had his own reason for being there, I had to invent one for him.

The problem with any job that demanded creativity was that if you were good at what you did, you developed that odd muscle called imagination. While performing, I was called upon to picture myself in any number of absurd situations and convince myself they were real. It was a great skill to have onstage, but I couldn't turn it off during everyday life. And so my mind was constantly creating scenarios that bore nothing in common with truth, and my emotions, already stretched thin by the demands of feeling joy and sorrow when there
was no reason for either, began to appear in response to my fictions. I could convince myself of anything except that what I pretended was real wasn't.

And so it was that as I crossed the lobby I began to mull why a man in a dress uniform would be at the Shaw House, and the only reason I could come up with was that he was there for me. If that were the case, then who was he? Only one identity made any sense and that was that this man was Corporal Harrington, the sailor who'd notified me that Jack was missing in action. And if he was here, and he was sad (and clearly he was), then the worst thing possible had happened.

I gasped and spun around, doing greater injury to my knee in the process. I took the soldier in again from top to tail and tried to remember what naval uniforms looked like and what insignia corporals wore. He had little wings on his collar. What was that—a seagull? Damn me for not knowing anything about the military! Why hadn't I gone to see
This Is the Army
with Jayne?

I begged myself to calm down. Whatever he came to say, I'd hear him out. I'd be strong and brave and invite him for a cup of coffee once his message was delivered. I'd let him tell me about Jack, and when he was done and gone, only then would I cry.

“Rosie.” Belle entered the lobby from the kitchen. She wore one of several relics from her vaudeville days, a brightly colored, feather-trimmed, velvet dress that allowed for easy movement while rewarding visitors with a little too much sagging chest and expanding leg. “I'm glad you're here.” I looked from her to Corporal Harrington and estimated how quickly I could run with a bum knee. If he never said what he'd come to say, then couldn't we claim it never happened? Belle gestured to the man and he stood. “This is…”
No,
my brain screamed.
Don't say it. I can't be strong. I can't be brave
. “Captain George Pomeroy.”

“Captain George Pomeroy?” I repeated.

“Yes,” said Belle. “Are you all right?”

I hopped on my good leg to put the color back in my face. “I had an accident at rehearsal. Nothing serious.”

George stepped away from the sofa and gestured for me to take his place. He was polite, this soldier. No, not soldier. Pilot. Those wings on his collar were air force insignia.

“I'm all right,” I said. “I was just headed up to my room.”

“Do you mind if we come with you?” asked Belle.

I froze, unsteadily, with my leg raised like a flamingo's. Belle asking to bring a man to my room was like the Allies offering up England to Germany. It just wasn't done. “Did I hear you right?”

“His fiancée used to live here, and he wanted to see her room. I was just about to take him up there. She was in 2B.”

That was my room. And Paulette's former room. “Sure,” I said. “Right this way.”

Belle charged ahead of us. As I hobbled up the stairs, Captain Pomeroy remained at a safe distance behind me. Despite his modesty, I knew that if I stumbled, he would reach out and steady me. He was the kind of guy who radiated consideration.

“Wait,” I said to Belle. The pain in my leg had rendered me momentarily stupid. Belle couldn't come into my room. There was too much contraband, to say nothing of the cat.

“What's the matter?” asked Belle.

I leaned heavily against the railing. “The pain in my leg. It's really bad. Do you have any pain tablets?”

“Can't it wait?”

“It really can't.”

Belle sighed and looked past me at the captain. I expected her to tell me to go climb my thumb, but George Pomeroy was a man in uniform, and that gave him a free pass for a lot of things these days, including going where no man had been welcome before. “I'll see what I can find.” Belle waddled past us, and I ceased my demonstration of pain. The captain and I made it into the hallway, where I paused before my closed door.

“This is the joint,” I said. “I should warn you—my roomie and I aren't known for our…cleanliness.” He smiled at that. At least I think he did. He may have just momentarily relaxed his frown. I
opened the door and ushered him in before hobbling over to Jayne's bed and landing rump first on her still sprawled pajamas.

Captain Pomeroy walked around the room examining the walls, ceiling, floor, and windows, but paying no mind to anything that belonged to us. Churchill crawled out from under the dresser and, sensing a new victim to entertain, approached the captain and rubbed his back against the captain's legs.

“I'd appreciate it if you kept the cat on the q.t. We're not allowed animals.” I stood up long enough to nudge Churchill into the closet and close the door. I was feeling increasingly uncomfortable with my companion. It's not that I was threatened by him, but I longed for him to say something—anything—to break the awkward silence. “So what branch are you in?”

He was kind enough not to call me an idiot. “Air force.”

I nodded. “When did your fiance live here?”

He looked out the window, taking in the neon hotel sign that served as our sun and moon. He had close-cropped red hair that turned pink in the thin afternoon light and a spray of freckles across the bridge of his nose that would always mark him as younger than he actually was. “About a year and a half ago. This place was very special to her. She talked about it all the time.”

“What was her name?”

“Paulette Monroe.” He read the recognition in my face. “Did you know her?”

“She was before my time, but I've heard of her. She was kind of a legend around here, what with going to Hollywood and everything. I was sorry to hear what happened.”

He left his post at the window and came to my side. “May I sit?”

“Of course.”

He landed heavily on my bed and stared at that object with such unfamiliarity that it was clear he hadn't slept for days. “Paulette promised me that the next time I came to New York she'd show me around, do it up right. She loved this place. Talked about it more than her mom and pop.” Now that he was making a habit of this talking thing,
I picked up a slight Southern accent. His voice was soft and wistful, so close to feminine it was hard to imagine him shouting alongside other soldiers.

“How did you meet Paulette?”

He didn't answer me; he answered the wall. “At the Stage Door Canteen. We danced half the night and the next thing you know we were writing each other every day.”

“And then you got engaged.”

He looked down at red, wind-chapped hands and rubbed at a patch of peeling skin. “I did it on a V-Disc. You should've heard the other guys hooting and hollering as I recorded myself. Never thought I'd live that down. She wanted to get married right away, but I thought we should wait until my next leave—you know, so the families could be there. I never thought…” He didn't finish the sentence. He didn't have to.

I struggled to make sense of a woman with a gangster beau and an air force fiancé. Who was Paulette Monroe, and how did she end up with more men at once than I was likely to have in a lifetime?

“I hear they arrested someone,” I said. He nodded. “Had Paulette ever mentioned the guy before?”

He rubbed at his thumb, an apparent habit of his. The skin was red and angry. “Never.”

Of course she hadn't. Why would either man know about the other?

“Thanks for letting me see the room.” George stood and straightened the creases on his heavily starched pants. “It's nice knowing what she saw when she was here. I feel like maybe, by being in the same places she was, it's a little like being with her, you know?”

I nodded and rose onto my unsteady feet. “Is the air force giving you some time off?”

“A couple of weeks.”

“Are you spending it all here?”

“I'm only in New York till Saturday. There's going to be a service for her on Friday, so all her acting friends can be a part of it, then
I'm taking a train back home with her, for the real funeral.” I thought about the long, hard ride he had ahead of him, probably the most time he and Paulette had ever spent together.

“Where are you staying?”

“At a hotel called the Endicott. It's on Columbus and Eightieth Street.” I knew the joint. It was a step up from a flophouse and ran you two bits a night—less if you didn't want to pony up for a private bath. “Do you think I could have a moment alone in here?”