Searching for Grace Kelly (18 page)

Her father had been her surprising ally in her war with her mother to get permission to enroll at Katharine Gibbs and live at the Barbizon. As the months had passed, Dolly could tell, from the tone of voice in her calls and infrequent letters, that her mother had assumed Dolly's New York tour would prove a phase—a misguided, starry-eyed venture into metropolitan “fanciness,” as she was fond of calling it.

Dolly should be angry, sitting watching Bridget Hickey turn over five pounds of goopy potato salad with her big serving spoon, stopping only to take a sip of beer, but she couldn't be. Her mother was, quite simply, impossibly Irish. Dolly had been a child through the Depression; her mother had navigated its treacherous pitfalls and scares as a full-fledged adult. There was a fear among that entire generation of anything that smacked of reaching too far, or too high, or of trying to make something of yourself beyond the safe confines of your own backyard, where family and neighbors could look out for you. In the thirties, family and neighbors were all you had.

Kathleen had followed the playbook, married a guy who had been in the service and gotten a job in a local bottling plant that guaranteed a week's vacation and a pension as long as people kept drinking bottled liquids. The fact that he had a head shaped like an overturned bucket and belched constantly was immaterial. Now Kathleen was entering motherhood. Another box checked off the list. Dolly's brothers would no doubt repeat the pattern. Stay in the neighborhood. Get a job with a local company or, better yet, the government. Outside of the priesthood, there was no occupation Irish-Catholic parents in Utica wanted more for their sons than that of mailman or police officer.

Dolly couldn't decide which was worse: wanting a more exciting life in New York, or pursuing a more exciting life in New York because you were afraid no one decent would want you as a wife in Utica.

As if reading her mind, her mother said, “Aunt Theresa will be here at three to help put the food out. Regina is driving her over.”

Dolly felt her back go up. “You invited Frank's sister?” Frank, the louse who had been her on-again, mostly off-again boyfriend. “Why?”

“I was at the store and I saw Regina there, and we were talking. She said she could get her father's car and drive Aunt Theresa. Dolly, you know her hip isn't good. And there aren't a lot of women in this neighborhood who drive.”

“Daddy could have picked up Aunt Theresa.”

Her mother shrugged, stabbed a fork into the potato salad, and scooped up a bite. “Mmm. Creamy. See? This is what I am always telling Aunt Moya. You have to use the Hellmann's. But who listens?” She downed the last of her beer, then got up from the table. “I have to go get ready.”

Dolly sat, stewing. Her mother lived under the misguided notion that if Dolly had just stayed in Utica, she and Frank would have worked out. The stood-up dates, the broken promises, she was always so quick to explain away bad behavior in Frank that she would have never tolerated from her own children. Why was clear: It was better to be married to a louse than not married at all. Security, that's what mattered. Take what you can get. Go for the sure bet.

Regina will be on me like a bee
, Dolly thought.
It won't be five seconds before she tells me all about the new girl Frank is seeing. The old cow. Oh, why didn't I just stay in Manhattan? But I couldn't have done that to Kathleen
. Dolly hadn't wanted to tell anyone about her breakfast guy yet, not until she felt more sure. But if battle lines were being drawn, that called for action.
Maybe I'll just tell Regina a thing or two myself
.

She stubbed out her cigarette, watching the smoke curl lazily up to the light above the kitchen table.

 

For the third time in as many weeks, Vivian had almost missed the bus again. Her only answer was to succumb and buy one of those damn alarm clocks, even though she hated that sudden shrill bell that inevitably made her shoot up in bed as if the place were on fire.

The recent humidity had broken, leaving a perfect summer morning for the short walk from the bus stop to the mansion. Strolling down the winding sidewalk, Vivian took in the sights of children on bicycles, free from the drudgery of school, their biggest worries now the possibility of a flat tire or a sudden thunderstorm. Leafy trees framed the street and swayed in a light breeze, scattering beautiful patterns onto the road. Who knew New Jersey could be so beautiful?

She scrambled up the steps of the mansion and pushed through the door. “Good morning, Josie,” she said. “And how are things among the natives today?”

“Quiet, so far,” Josie replied from behind the reception desk. Tiny and wiry, Josie was one of the five-dayers, one of the volunteers who came almost every day of the week, and sometimes even popped by on the weekend. Vivian, by contrast, came only on Wednesdays, relegating her to what Harry Sofronski, who had once tap-danced with Gene Kelly, called “the special guest stars” here.

It had only been a few months, but the Actors Fund Home, tucked away in the former mansion of an old miser (a woman miser, no less) in leafy Englewood, New Jersey, had proven an unlikely escape hatch for Vivian since she'd started coming in the spring. Arriving in New York in March and knowing no one, she'd been lucky to land the job at the Stork and even luckier to land housing at the Barbizon; Mrs. Mayhew had a soft spot for authentic Europeans, thought they classed up the place. Vivian had imagined her New York life would be nothing but hustle and bustle, endless cab rides to a steady stream of auditions, but quickly discovered that the auditions were few and far between—two, to be exact—and that most of her days were spent either smoking fags or soaking her aching feet after another night shilling them.

Then one of the Stork girls had casually mentioned she had an aunt out here and was going to come visit, asked Vivian if she felt like a little road trip out to Jersey. From the moment she stepped into the mansion, Vivian knew she would come back. The place itself was rather unremarkable—misers weren't exactly known for their décor—but the architecture was brilliant, reminding her of some of the country houses in Bath.

What had really kept her hauling herself out of bed every Wednesday morning were the people who lived here. Old showgirls, vaudevillians, magicians, singers, dancers. Some had done Shakespeare at the Old Globe; others had been contract players for MGM or RKO. They were the exceptions. Most were Broadway hoofers and swings, the extras and chorines hired show after show to flesh out the scenery and fall in line behind the leads. They'd lived lives on tightropes, never knowing where the next paycheck was coming from or if one was coming at all, their personal lives a mishmash of backstage affairs and dressing-room brawls endured for the brief heady adrenaline rush brought by the orchestra's overture and the glare of white lights.

And now here they were, old and wrinkled and broken, waiting for the final curtain. Some were bitter, but most were not. Which is why, Vivian supposed, she kept coming back week after week. She knew she was doing a good thing, a selfless thing, and she had not done many of those in her life. But then, this was not truly selfless, for the stories she heard were priceless. Some she had heard over and over, especially from Gil Mercer, who never seemed to recall that, yes, he had told you the story about the time Gloria Swanson threw an old-fashioned in his face at the Algonquin. But they were all a form of payment for services rendered. A generous payment.

“Anything urgent need doing?” Vivian asked. She spent most of her time simply visiting. Many of the other volunteers measured their worth in tasks accomplished; just last week one had walked into the kitchen declaring, “I folded the towels!,” as if it warranted a medal.

“Not right now,” Josie said. “But Sy Schwartzman asked if you were coming today. He's in the library.”

“He wants a rematch at checkers,” Vivian said. “I beat him senseless last week.”

“What he wants is to see if you're wearing a short skirt.” Josie laughed.

No luck today, Sy
, Vivian thought as she walked down the hall toward the library. She was in a simple white blouse and navy slacks. She'd found out early on it was best not to engage with some of the gentlemen who lived in the mansion. More than a few were still alarmingly randy for their age.

Sy was sitting in the corner thumbing through the
Herald-American
. He smiled as she walked up, then started shaking his head. “Would it kill you to show a little leg, England?” This was his pet name for her. He'd been in London for the Great War and was convinced it was kismet the two of them had met here.

“No,” Vivian replied, “but it might kill you.”

“You're too much, England,” he said, chuckling. “I still can't believe you ain't been in pictures yet.”

Sy had been a stage manager for some of Broadway's biggest productions in the 1920s and '30s, though his dream, unfulfilled, had been to be a successful playwright. Unlike most of his fellow residents, he was reluctant to tell stories about the old days, but when he did, they were worth pulling up a chair for. Just last week Vivian had begged him to fill in gaps on a story he'd told her involving Rudy Vallee, a much older Theda Bara, a mysterious manservant named Hendrik, a few bottles of premium vodka, and a tryst in the Fifth Avenue salon of a banking heiress.

Vivian set up the checkers board. “I know you've been waiting for the rematch.”

“I let you win last week.”

“If only you lied as well as you flirt.” She tapped the board. “Carry on, then. First move's yours.”

He slid his red piece diagonally. “I have some moves I could show you, England.”

“Oh, for God's sake!” she said, shaking her head and moving her own checker. “How many poor chorus girls surrendered to the Sy Schwartzman onslaught, anyway? I bet there's a gaggle of illegitimate children running around the Lower East Side, wondering why they're always craving knishes.”

Sy chortled again, harder this time, coughing up phlegm. He loved it when she got sassy. “You make no sense to me, England.”

“How's that?” She jumped him, swiped the red piece off the board.

“You're a beautiful, classy girl, and yet you leave New York City every week to schlep out here to play checkers with an old
farshtinkener
like me.”

“You're not my only boyfriend out here, Sy. I like to play the field.”

“Don't shit with me, England. You know what I mean. You work in the Stork Club, for chrissake. You must meet interesting guys every night of the week.”

She smiled at him. How could she possibly make him understand? Make any of them? Last month she'd spent two hours listening to one of the ladies on the lawn talk about working for Flo Ziegfeld.
Flo Ziegfeld
. Afterward, the woman had apologized profusely “for boring you with my old tired stories.” Vivian could have listened for two more hours and not noticed the time going by. These people were not old stage vets. They were living history books, dismissed by almost everyone stupid enough to think there weren't any pages worth reading.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a commotion on the other side of the library. A woman screaming, “Just leave me alone!”

Vivian couldn't place her face immediately. Edith something or other. She was one of the ones who kept to herself mostly, not much for chitchat. Which was fine. Not everyone wanted to relive their glory and not-so-glory days as they waited out their last act. She was thin and bony and wore a loose housedress with a pattern of big blue flowers that was at least two sizes too big. She was swatting wildly at an aide. “I said, leave me alone!”

“Now, Edith, don't be difficult—”

As Vivian walked over, another resident, a man she'd seen but didn't know, was barking from his adjacent chair. He was jabbing his finger in the air. “See? Didn't I tell you? She's foul! She shouldn't be in here!”

“What's going on here?” Vivian asked.

“It's all under control,” the harried aide replied curtly. “We just need to get upstairs—”

“Don't talk about me like I'm a child! I am not a child!”

Vivian stepped in front of Edith, careful to keep her sightline but to not crouch down the way one would to talk to a child. “Of course you're not, Edith. No one is suggesting you are.”

“She stinks!” the old man was screeching. “She needs a diaper!”

Edith whipped around and flung the back of her hand right against his cheek, sending his eyeglasses flying across the library. Sy started to rise out of his chair, and two women just walking in stopped to see what all the commotion was about. As the aide scrambled to retrieve the glasses and calm the now-hysterical old man, Vivian tried to piece together what was going on. Edith was clutching the back of her dress tightly, and Vivian could now smell the problem. She looked into the woman's eyes and suddenly saw the face of a child staring back at her.

“I . . . I messed myself,” Edith whispered, her body shaking in frustration and embarrassment. “I'm sorry. It's just . . . I . . . I need . . .”

Vivian slid an arm around her shoulders and began gently walking her out. “C'mon, girl,” she said. “Nothing to be upset over. We all have bad days. Don't let that old wanker upset you. All you need is a nice warm bath and some lunch.”

Will this be me?
Vivian wondered fifteen minutes later, after she'd stripped Edith, dispatched her clothes for cleaning and bleaching, and poured the old woman into a steaming tub. As she knelt on the floor behind her, gently circling Edith's pruny back with a soapy sponge, Vivian considered that at one point Edith had been just like her, young and pretty and in New York to make a career for herself in show business, and yet in the end she had ended up here. Did she have a family? Did they know where she was, or even care?