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She began to blush as she opened the door. Luckily, in the harsh work light of the stage, nobody could tell.
She followed the stage manager. “Just walk across and back a couple of times,” he said. There were shadowy figures sitting toward the tenth row of the darkened auditorium. The stage floor was unswept and the bare bricks of the back wall looked like the ruins of Rome. She was sure her blush could be seen all the way out to the street. “Miss Gretchen Jordache,” the stage manager called out into the cavernous darkness. A message in a bottle over the night waves of seats. I am adrift. She wanted to run away.
She walked across the stage. She felt as though she were stumbling up a mountain. A zombie in a bathing suit.
There was no sound from the auditorium. She walked back. Still no sound. She walked back and forth twice more, worried about splinters in her bare feet.
“Thank you very much, Miss Jordache.” Nichols’s dejected voice, thin in the empty theater. “That’s fine. If you’ll stop in the office tomorrow we’ll arrange about the contract.”
It was as simple as that. Abruptly, she stopped blushing.
Willie was sitting alone at the small bar in the Algonquin, erect on a stool, nursing a whiskey in the greenish, submarine dusk that was the constant atmosphere of the room. He swiveled around to greet her as she came in carrying the little rubberized beach bag with her bathing suit in it. “The beautiful girl looks like a beautiful girl who has just landed herself a job as the Mystery of Woman at the Belasco Theatre,” he said. “I am quoting.” Over lunch, they had all laughed at Gretchen’s account of her interview with Nichols.
She sat down on the stool next to his. “You’re right,” she said. “Sarah Bernhardt is on her way.”
“She never could have handled it,” Willie said. “She had a wooden leg. Do we drink champagne?”
“Where’s Mary Jane?”
“Gone. She had a date.”
“We drink champagne.” They both laughed.
When the barman set their glasses in front of them, they drank to Mary Jane. Delicious absence. It was the second time in her life Gretchen had drunk champagne. The hushed, gaudy room in the four-story house on a side street, the one-way mirror, the magnificent whore with the baby face, stretched triumphantly on the wide bed.
“We have many choices,” Willie said. “We can stay here and drink wine all night. We can have di
“I would like to be,” Gretchen said. She ignored the “make love.” Obviously it was a joke. Everything was a joke with Willie. She had the feeling that even in the war, at the worst times, he had made fun of the bursting shells, the planes diving in, the flaming wings. Images from news-reels, war movies. “Old Joh
“The party it is,” he said. “There’s no hurry. It’ll go on all night. Now, before we fling ourselves into the mad whirl of pleasure, are there things I should know about you?” Willie poured himself another glass of champagne. His hand was not quite steady and the bottle made a little clinking music against the rim of the glass.
“What kind of things?”
“Begin at the begi
“The Y.W.C.A. downtown,” she said.
“Oh, God.” He groaned. “If I dress in drag could I pass as a young Christian woman and rent a room next to yours? I’m petite and I have a light beard. I could borrow a wig. My father always wanted daughters.”
“I’m afraid not,” Gretchen said. “The old lady at the desk can tell a boy from a girl at a hundred yards.”
“Other facts. Fellas?”
“Not at the moment,” she said after a slight hesitation. “And you?”
“The Geneva Convention stipulates that when captured, a prisoner of war must only reveal his name, rank, and serial number.” He gri
The champagne burned in her throat. “I liked you better when you were joking,” she said.
“Me, too,” he said soberly. “Still, there’s a brighter side to it. I’m working on a divorce. The lady found other divertissements while daddy was away playing soldier.”
“Where is she? Your wife?” The words came out leadenly. Absurd, she thought. I’ve only known him for a few hours.
“California,” he said. “Hollywood. I guess I have a thing for actresses.”
A continent away. Burning deserts, impassable peaks, the fruited-plain. Beautiful, wide America. “How long have you been married?”
“Five years.”
“How old are you anyway?” she asked.
“Will you promise not to discard me if I tell you the truth?”
“Don’t be silly. How old?”
“Twenty fucking nine,” he said. “Ah, God.”
“I’d have said twenty-three at the outside,” Gretchen shook her head wonderingly. “What’s the secret?”
“Drink and riotous living,” Willie said. “My face is my misfortune. I look like an ad for the boys’ clothing department of Saks. Women of twenty-two are ashamed to be seen with me in public places. When I made captain the Group Commander said, ‘Willie, here’s your gold star for being a good boy in school this month.’ Maybe I ought to grow a moustache.”
“Wee Willie Abbott,” Gretchen said. His false youthfulness was reassuring to her. She thought of the gross, dominating maturity of Teddy Boylan. “What did you do before the war?” she asked. She wanted to know everything about him. “How do you know Bayard Nichols?”
“I worked for him on a couple of shows. I’m a flak. I’m in the worst business in the world. I’m a publicity man. Do you want your picture in the paper, little girl?” The disgust was not put on. If he wanted to look older, there was no need to grow a moustache. All he had to do was talk about his profession. “When I went into the Army, I thought I’d finally get away from it. So they looked up my card and put me in public relations. I ought to be arrested for impersonating an officer. Have some more champagne.” He poured for them again, the bottle clinking an icy code of distress against the glasses, the nicotined fingers trembling minutely.
“But you were overseas. You did fly,” she said. During lunch, he had talked about England.
“A few missions. Just enough to get an Air Medal, so I wouldn’t feel naked in London. I was a passenger. I admired other men’s wars.”
“Still, you could’ve been killed.” His bitterness disturbed her and she would have liked to move him out of it.
“I’m too young to die, Colonel.” He gri
“When do you get out of the Air Force?”
“I’m on terminal leave now,” he said. “I wear the uniform because I can get into shows free with it. I also have to go over to the hospital on Staten Island a couple of times a week for therapy for my back and nobody’d believe I was a Captain if I didn’t wear the suit.”
“Therapy? Were you wounded?”
“Not really. We made an aggressive landing and bounced. I had a little operation on my spine. Twenty years from now I’ll say the scar came from shrapnel. All drunk up, like a good little girl?”
“Yes,” Gretchen said. The wounded were everywhere. Arnold Simms, in the maroon bathrobe, sitting on the table and looking down at the foot that no longer was any good for ru