8
“WHAT?S THE NEW GIRL DOING?”
Unlike Paulette, the cigarette girl from Seventh Heaven, her roommates, Fay and Kate, had not yet embraced Letty?s name. But even if new girl was a little bit of an insult, still it meant that Letty was new to someplace, that even if she was only here until she figured out where else to go, there was the chance she was on her way to belonging. The place in question was a basement apartment, dark even in the daytime and with a warped floor. It was filled with old velvet furniture, tasseled and threadbare, that had the air of having come from what Mother might have called “a house of ill repute.”
After the fight with Cordelia and their expulsion from the Washborne, Letty had returned to the nightclub because it was the only place she could think of, and the nice girl who?d helped her earlier in the evening had helped her again by taking her back here. She?d slept a long time, and when she?d woken up, she had three new friends to replace the one she?d lost.
Fay?s hair was peroxided to a shade almost white, and Kate?s was frizzy and dark, and they both wore mid-thigh-length kimonos around the apartment even though it was well past noon. Their hair and makeup, however, had been impeccably done already that morning, just after they?d risen, as it had been the morning before, when Letty met them for the first time. Letty, who was lying facedown on a worn Persian rug with a magazine she?d found in the bathroom, couldn?t immediately think of a reply and was relieved when Paulette answered for her.
“She?s reading notices for auditions she?s too shy to go try out for, and circling them for reasons she doesn?t fully comprehend.” Paulette?s voice was flat, and she spoke from the kitchenette without looking up from the coffee she was making. Her dark hair was already marcelled, and the crests of its wide waves gleamed in the afternoon light. Her lips were wine-dark and shiny, anchoring a slightly plump face, and she was as tall as Cordelia. The ceiling in the kitchenette was low like all the ceilings in the house, except a little more so, and her head almost seemed to graze its tin tiles.
“Aw, why won?t you go?” Fay took a seat next to Kate on the plum-colored velvet couch, with its faded and ripped upholstery leaking white fluff from the cushions, so that she could peer over Letty?s shoulder. “Won?t kill you, you know.”
Letty glanced up at her and gave a diminutive shrug. “I will soon, just not yet,” she said. Paulette was right—she knew that she wasn?t really going to go to any of those auditions—though she wouldn?t have been able to say why exactly.
“Oh, honey, look at all these fancy jobs you?re thinking about!” Fay?s kimono was white with blue flowers, almost as pale as her hair and complexion, and her sleeve brushed Letty?s shoulder as she peered over it at the last page of the Weekly Stage. “You?ve got to start with something a little less ambitious.” They all hoped to make it on the stage one way or another, but Fay was currently the only roommate who earned money at it, as a chorus girl in one of the big variety shows. Glimpsing her long, coltish legs crossed and dangling from the edge of the couch, Letty found herself wondering if she would ever have the height for a job like that.
“Oh, hush, we all have to find out for ourselves,” Paulette said, coming toward them with a steaming cup of coffee in her hands.
“Sad,” Kate interjected from the couch, upon which she reclined as she repaired a wide, beaded belt that she had damaged the previous evening, “but true.”
“Oh, no—not the new Gordon Grange play. How tiresome,” Fay went on, continuing to spy over Letty?s shoulder at the wanted listing. He was a playwright Mother used to speak admiringly of, and the part called for a waiflike brunette, which was exactly Letty?s type. Though she couldn?t admit it to these girls, who all spoke as though they?d never been surprised by anything, she had already decided that the part was perfect for her and that if only she could get up the courage, fate would make it her first real job. “They call him a genius, but geniuses are just like other men, you know.”
“Except they expect more and do less,” Kate put in.
“You just have to start trying out,” Fay said, patting her white-blond bob. “You?ll be scared for a while, and then you won?t be scared anymore, and eventually something will stick. I can?t tell you how many times I heard no before I—”
“Before she said yes!” Kate interjected bawdily, and then threw back her frizzy head and howled in laughter.
Bewildered, Letty sat up and crossed her pale legs under her navy skirt. She wasn?t quite sure what Kate meant, and if she meant what Letty thought she meant, whether it would hurt Fay?s feelings. But then she realized that Fay thought it was just as funny—she was laughing even harder than Kate was. Letty, who had started to blush, refocused her eyes on the paper.
“Oh, sweetheart, don?t mind them,” Paulette said quickly. She handed the cup of coffee to Fay, bent down on Letty?s other side, and began rearranging her hair. “You?ll get there your own way. Anyway, Fay, you know you really aren?t so bad. You?d never do anything as bad as what Clara Hay does.”
“That is very true,” Fay said, leaning back on the couch and crossing her legs the other way.
“Who is Clara Hay?” Letty asked.
“Oh, just a girl who works with me at the club. Hasn?t got an ounce of real talent, but she gets by—doing things other girls won?t.” Perhaps Paulette saw the new girl squirm a little, because she waved her hand in the air and said, “Never mind. Don?t think of it. What we need to think about is your hair—it?s really too old-fashioned. Can I fix it? Please?”
Without looking up, Kate passed her the scissors that had been resting on a side table. Letty?s large eyes rolled up toward Paulette, who was smiling so kindly that it was impossible to do anything but nod in agreement.
“Come over here.” Paulette pulled a wooden chair out from the small table in the kitchenette and gestured toward it.
Tentatively, Letty took a seat. She closed her eyes. Holding her breath, she tried to banish the thought of what Mother would have said. The room grew quiet as Paulette placed the blades an inch below her ear and began to cut. In the few days that she?d spent in New York, she hadn?t yet heard a noise quite as loud as that, and she could not help but gasp out loud as the dark locks began to fall into her lap.
“Better already,” Kate said dryly.
Letty squeezed her eyes tighter. Cold metal slid against her neck, and then she felt more hair fall down her back. Her face went numb and there was a buzzing in her ears, and she lost the sense of time passing. When it was over, she only knew because Paulette said, “There!” and set the scissors down.
The room seemed brighter when Letty lifted her lids. Fay passed a hand mirror to Paulette, who handed it to Letty. More than two-thirds the length of her dark hair was gone now, and it framed her neat, pale heart of a face. A row of bangs drew a straight line across her forehead, bringing out the iridescence of her complexion. She appeared more grown-up and more fragile at once; her neck had never appeared so slender. In the reflection, she could see Paulette, eyes bright and expectant, watching to see if Letty liked the new cut, and Letty did attempt a brave smile. But then her bottom lip trembled, and she knew that she was going to cry. She stood and hurried to the front door.
Outside the sky was a lazy arch of tranquil blue, and neighbors went about their business. All Letty could hear were her own rough breaths as her little legs carried her down the block. By the time Paulette caught up with her near the corner, her cheeks were streaked and damp.
“Oh, honey, I wouldn?t have touched your hair if I?d known you cared so much!” her new friend exclaimed, frowning with exaggerated sympathy as she reached forward and began to blot the tears away.
“I don?t!” Letty had to bring her arm up to cover her face. “I don?t care that much.”
“No, ‘course not. You?ll like it tomorrow, I promise.”
A final sob worked its way up through Letty, and when her shoulders had relaxed again, she felt Paulette take hold of them and spin her around.
“Look!”
Letty did as she was told. They were standing in front of a barbershop, and in the reflective window glass she saw a girl she barely recognized. All the elements of her appearance had been altered by the bobbing of her hair, and what might before have come across as slight and girlish now seemed petite and rakish—sophisticated, even. The sorrow ebbed, and for a moment there was only a quiet empty inside. Her long silken hair was gone, and her best friend was gone. All the old familiar places and people, whether comfortable or hurtful or dull, were very far away, and she didn?t have the money to return to them even if she wanted to. A sensation of weightlessness came over her, and her lips parted.
“I wasn?t crying about my hair,” she said, and the shadow of a smile crossed her face. Until that moment, she realized, she hadn?t really stepped out of her old name, and for the first time she glimpsed Letty Larkspur in that shopwindow. She had lost many things, but she could see herself more clearly all of a sudden. There was a glistening in her eyes when she turned around to face Paulette. “I feel so light!”
“Well, you look gorgeous.” Paulette smiled and reached forward to adjust the new girl?s bangs.
“I?m sorry for being such a ninny. It?s just that all of a sudden Ohio, and everything, seemed so far away.”
“Well, that?s ‘cause it is far away,” Paulette deadpanned. “Though pretty soon you?ll forget there?s anything or anybody west of Twelfth Avenue.”
Letty, who wouldn?t even have known how to get to Twelfth Avenue, could only nod.
“You know, I?m not from here either. Kansas. I can?t even remember which train I?d take to there anymore, or how I used to talk. I took up with a waiter from the Plaza when I first arrived—he?d spent a long time listening to how fancy people talk, and he taught me to pronounce consonants, thank heavens. Before that …” She trailed off and crossed her eyes clownishly, which brought both girls to giggles.
“And, oh! I made you run out in your nightclothes, didn?t I?” Letty said, through her laughter, once she?d realized that under Paulette?s belted black coat was probably nothing more than the slip she?d been wearing during the haircut, and how mortifying that must be for her.
But Paulette shrugged and opened up her palms toward the sky. “Who cares?” she said. Then, lacing her arm with Letty?s, she added, “Aren?t you starving?”
“Yes!”
“Come on, let?s eat some breakfast.”
So they strolled to a lunchroom on Sixth Avenue, where diners sat packed in at rows and rows of long tables, their mixed origins even more salient against the spare, white-tiled room. Policemen took their break with corned beef hash, side by side with the local swindlers who were their sometime antagonists, while men with long hair put aside their ukuleles to eat pastrami sandwiches beside socialites, still in their evening finery of the night before, bent forward over steaming coffee and plates of fried eggs.
“Pancakes—I want pancakes. Don?t you want pancakes?” Paulette asked, facing Letty across the long gray marble table.
Eating a sweet breakfast dish so late in the afternoon seemed at first terribly frivolous to Letty, especially since the dinner hour in Union was often about this time of day. But once the idea had settled in, she found that pancakes were precisely what she wanted. She was, in fact, starving. She could have eaten a stack of ten. They ordered pancakes and coffees and looked around at the multitude of characters, chewing and gossiping, just in from being terribly busy or on their way to do something awfully grand. While they waited for their food, Letty told Paulette about the dairy farm and the daily dance lessons Mother used to give, and Paulette told her stories about the nightclub and what it was like working there.
“And when her beau nodded off at the table, on account of the too many Bacardi cocktails he had drunk, she merely moved over to the next table and took up with the fellow there!” ended one such anecdote, as the syrupy remnants of their meal were being cleared away. The girl who used to be called Letitia might have found herself discomfited by this story, but Letty was now sufficiently citified to find the humor in it and laugh out loud.
By the time they returned to the sidewalks, the brightest part of the day had already passed and Letty felt she knew Paulette almost twice as well as she had only a few hours before. They were heading across Barrow Street when Paulette took the lollipop out of her mouth and said, “You really want to be on the stage, do you?”
“Yes,” Letty managed after a minute.
“You?ll never be the queen of high kicks, I?m afraid.”
“No.” Letty sighed. “But I can sing.”
“Even better. Show me.”
“Show you … now?” They came to a busy avenue, where people were walking by on both sides. The first floor of every window was a storefront, inside which shopgirls leaned against counters and stared out at the passing pageant. “Here?”
“Why not?”
“But—but there are all these people.”
“Oh, what does it matter? Everyone is always just paying attention to themselves anyhow.”
They were still walking, but Letty let her eyes drift closed and stopped thinking about her forward motion. She remembered the reflection of the girl with the smart bob, and she lifted her hands and began to sing a song she knew from the radio, about the joys of dancing barefoot until two o?clock. Her voice was timid at first, but then it rose to full capacity, and when it did she forgot the people around her and began to move a little with the melody.
When she was finished, she did a twirl and bowed toward Paulette. Then she peeked, with a mixture of pride and fearfulness, to see what she thought. Paulette?s eyebrows were raised, and her eyes were round with sincere admiration. “You got it, kiddo,” Paulette said.
But before Letty could thank her or even absorb the full pleasure of that subtle, stylish endorsement, she got another.
“Bravo!” a man called out, and she turned toward the sound of clapping.
There were people all around, some of them watching her with sudden attentiveness, but most of them going about their business, just as Paulette had predicted, and it took another few moments for her eyes to settle on the gentleman in question. He was fair, wearing a straw boater, and he was hanging from an idling electric streetcar. Though his nose had decided character, his face was soft and gentle like a college boy?s. There was something teddy bear-like in the way his gray herringbone suit fit. His eyes were observant but not piercing, and set back so that his brow cast a shadow over them, and when he noticed that Letty had spotted him, he began clapping again.
“Bravo!” he repeated.
To hide her blush, Letty gave an even deeper curtsy, bowing her head so that the tips of her dark hair cut across her cheekbones. Then she stood up quickly and grabbed for Paulette?s hand, so they could hurry away before anyone noticed the embarrassment coloring the skin from her face down to her clavicles.
“Where can I see you again?” the young man called after her. The car had lurched into motion and was now passing the girls as they ran hand in hand up the avenue.
“You know where Seventh Heaven is?” Paulette called out.
The man nodded.
“She works there! Come by and see her sometime.”
The man lifted his hat and tipped it in their direction as the car continued uptown, and the girls’ run slowed to a brisk walk.
“He was nice!” Paulette said, laughing and catching her breath. “You see the kind of attention a little talent and a good haircut will get you?”
Letty nodded in agreement. “But I don?t work at Seventh Heaven,” she said when her giggles had subsided.
“Well, rent doesn?t pay itself, sister. We?ve gotta get you something to do.”
“Rent?” They turned off the avenue onto a side street, and Letty let the word echo in her mind. She found it had never held so much appeal. “You mean, I can be your roommate?”
“Yes. You?re one of us now, which—I?m sorry to inform you—is pricier than life back in Indiana.”
“Ohio,” Letty corrected her, but she smiled anyway.
“Ohio. But the manager, Mr. Cole, he likes me—he?ll hire you if I ask nice.”
“Thank you,” Letty whispered, though no matter how she tried, she wouldn?t have been able to convey the gratitude she felt toward this girl who, in less than a day, had turned her fortune around so completely.