Strings Attached

Eleven



New York City

November 1950



Dear Kit,

I don’t know what you’re doing for Thanksgiving,

but Da and I would like you to come home. I’ll meet

you at the train.

Love, Muddie

ps. please come



I held the letter in my hand. Home. If Billy got his furlough, we could take the train together. The first car, so we could stand in front and see the future rushing at us. The longing to see him was growing every moment I was without him.

I read the letter again and put it down on the dresser. I kept my earrings there, tiny pearls that Billy had bought me for my birthday last year. Funny, I thought I’d left them by the lamp, but they were lined up right there.

I opened the top drawer. A tumble of lingerie, the things Nate had brought that I couldn’t quite bring myself to wear. It seemed too intimate, somehow. Every time I saw them I blushed, wondering if Nate had peeked in the boxes.

Hadn’t I left the slip on top? I’d tucked my own underthings to the side, and the black slip had been so pretty I’d folded it on top of the bras and panty girdles that I didn’t wear anyway. My own garter belts were tossed in the corner.

I stared down at the tumble of elastic, rayon, and silk.

I figured I had to be mistaken. I wasn’t a neat person. What made me think I knew exactly how I folded underwear?

Uneasily, I shut the drawer.



Instead of wearing a skirt the next day, I pulled on my old dungarees and sneakers. I looked in the mirror as I brushed my hair, about to twist it into the Lido Doll upsweep. I like your hair that way.

I left it down. What was so bad about looking seventeen?

I was on Second Avenue, carrying home a grocery sack, when I saw a tall, striking girl walking ahead of me. Something about the swing of her hips was familiar, the lazy way she walked, the gesture of flipping her long, curly hair over a shoulder.

“Daisy?”

She turned. It took her a moment, but then she smiled. “It’s the kid from Providence. How are you, Kit?” She strode forward and kissed me on the cheek, and for a moment we greeted each other like long-lost friends, words tumbling over each other, not giving each other a chance to answer — What are you doing here, Well, I never, How absolutely lovely to run into you.

We’d been in summer stock together, but she’d been the star ingenue and I’d worked in the box office and been in the chorus. I was surprised at how warmly she greeted me, but I’d also grown used to the fact that I’d joined a family when I’d joined the theater, and here I was, running into a glamorous cousin.

“I’m just on my way to work,” she said, making a face. “My parents cut me off, the dears, so I’ve got rent to pay. It’s not bad — I start after lunch, so I can still make some morning rounds. I just came from the most horrific audition. What are you up to?”

“I’m working at the Lido,” I said.

“A Lido Doll?” Daisy whistled under her breath. “Nice going. Pretty soon we’ll be seeing you in Hollywood. Say, why don’t we grab some coffee and have a gossip? I have about twenty minutes. Did you hear Jeff Toland is making a movie with Jennifer Jones? Remember how we all thought his career was over? Including him?” She laughed.

“My place is near here,” I said. “I just bought some coffee.”

“Perfectly perfect. I’m yours.” Daisy followed me back down the avenue. “I’m over on the West Side. I have two roommates, and one is completely horrific, but she just got engaged, so she’s hardly ever there. Hey, do you miss it, though? I mean, the theater. You were such a great dancer. Isn’t the Lido mostly —” And she mimed walking, showing off a leg, and balancing something on her head at the same time. I burst out laughing. It wasn’t exactly true, but it made me realize that once I’d learned which way to dip and when to turn, it wasn’t exactly challenging.

“Well, I’m still dancing,” I said. “Being a Lido girl is every girl’s dream, right?”

Daisy snorted. “We get our dreams told to us. Girls. Every day. Life isn’t a Palmolive ad. Take my mother. Her dream is me, married, in Connecticut, with a baby on the way. Not mine, though. That’s why I’m selling dresses at Bonwit’s. The dresses are divine — I just wish I could afford them.” She gave my coat a critical look. “If I’m not mistaken, that’s one of ours. And from this season, too. Nice goods.” I could see the speculation in her eyes.

Hadn’t Nate said the clothes were from a year ago? I remembered that he’d asked Sonia my shoe size, and the lie smoothly clicked into place in my mind. He had lied about the clothes; he had bought them himself. But why? So I could look good enough for his son? It gave me an uneasy feeling, which was made even uneasier when Daisy strode past me into the foyer of my apartment and whistled softly.

“Nice,” she said. “You’re here all alone? Hey, if you ever need a roommate…”

I walked back to the kitchen and started to make coffee. I could feel Daisy’s curiosity propel her around the kitchen, as she studied the china and silver. Just last summer I’d arrived in Cape Cod with a cheap suitcase and a wardrobe that I’d dressed up with cheap scarves and bracelets. How could I afford this? I bent over the percolator, blind with shame. I hadn’t thought about how it would feel to invite someone over, someone who knew me.

Daisy’s parents had cut her off, and she was making her way alone, and she had found a way to pay for an apartment and still go on auditions. Nate had offered me an easy way, and I’d taken it. I’d been so afraid of failure that I’d taken the first hand held out to me. I had no one to blame but myself. I couldn’t even blame Nate, even though I wanted to.

I could have said no. I could have found another way.

And the worst part was, I wasn’t doing what I’d come to do. I didn’t care about Hollywood casting agents. I cared about the stage. I remembered the deep pleasure I got every single time I signed in at the stage door, even for a turkey like That Girl From Scranton!

I put a cup of coffee down in front of her. She took a sip and said, “Not bad. Beats drugstore coffee. Listen, as soon as I get a paycheck, I’ll spring for lunch at Child’s. I’ve got a friend who’s a waitress there — another actress, of course. She puts whipped cream on my coffee. Nice big dollop. We’ll go — it’s divine.”

Whipped cream plopped on a cup of coffee. I remembered the memory then, the first time I’d met Florence. The first time I’d seen Billy. And Delia fighting tears, and Da not knowing where to look. So many things had happened that night, but all I’d been thinking about was the roar of applause I’d gotten, and how right I’d felt standing on a stage.

“You’re right — being a Lido Doll isn’t my dream,” I told Daisy. “I just got lucky, and there I was, so I took it. But I miss Broadway. I want… I want to be an actress.” There was a guilty sound to my voice, as if I’d just confessed that I wanted to rob a bank.

Daisy nodded thoughtfully while she blew out a plume of smoke. “You were pretty good last summer when we ran lines. Look, if that’s what you want, you’ve got to study. Go downtown to the Actors Studio and audition. Or find a teacher who will take you on. Just do something. I can get you in to see Stella; she’ll take a look at you. Listen, are you still making the rounds?”

“The rehearsals were taking up all my time, and I do three shows a night, and —”

“And you’re beat. Sure.” Daisy squinted at me, then tilted her head. “Listen, they’re casting a new musical. That’s the audition I just came from. There’s a part for you — a speaking part, just a couple of lines. It’s not Shaw, for crissakes, you can absolutely do it. I just read for it, but I’m all wrong, I might as well face it. I can’t act sixteen — those days are long gone.” She rolled her eyes. “They’re looking for a gamine type — young, a little mischievous looking, tomboyish, you know? She’s the little sister of the lead. You want the address?”

“I don’t have any head shots.”

“So? That’s not a reason not to go. Get some made — you can drop them off later.” Daisy quickly scribbled down an address. “It’s a rehearsal hall on the West Side. If you leave right now you can make it.”

“But I’m not dressed, or made up.”

“What are you wearing, dungarees? Perfect. Too bad your hair is so long, but you still look the part. Maybe put it in a ponytail. Don’t even put on makeup. Anyway, go. And remember me when you’re famous!”