Searching for Grace Kelly (3 page)

“And yet you two insist that Miss Windsor has been with you all afternoon. My, my, such intrigue! How
shall
we sort it all out?” She leveled her gaze back on Laura. “Now, Miss Dixon, perhaps you would like to recount exactly how you three spent your afternoon, specifically. I would love to be able to give your mother a full report.”

The mention of Marmy struck like an elbow to the ribs. What if she truly was forced out for some breach of Barbizon ethics? Her behavior would be reported to
Mademoiselle;
she'd lose her job before she'd even started. Her parents would have to come and retrieve her, escort her like a murder suspect through the lobby as the other girls stood in clusters, each looking over in whispering disgust. Laura felt her courage slowly dissipating, like the air seeping out of a child's birthday party balloon.

“Well, I—” she began.

“I think it's time to tell the truth,” Dolly interjected, coming to her side and sliding her arm in Laura's. “You see, Mrs. Metzger, it's all quite . . . delicate, as I am sure you'll see. We're all just trying to protect . . . Miss Windsor. I mean, what girl doesn't occasionally get her head turned by a handsome guy? And, of course, you no doubt saw Mr. Sinmarks for yourself—he's quite dreamy, wouldn't you say?—and Miss Windsor had no intention of leaving the lounge, of course, but then Mr. Sinmarks—”

“Yes, Mr. St. Marks,” Laura interjected.

“. . . Of course. Mr.
St. Marks
had heard so much about the conservatory, which is lovely, after all, and so she thought, ‘Well, I guess a little pop-in wouldn't hurt, right?' and then the next thing you know, Mr. St. Marks was a bit too, well, friendly, you might say, and luckily that's when Miss Dixon and I happened to be passing by, and so we were able to intervene and convince him that it was best that his visit be cut short, and he was just so horribly embarrassed by the whole episode that he decided to leave by the back stairs, and that seemed like a good idea for everyone to avoid any more fuss, and so . . . yeah. That's . . . everything. That's what happened, plain and simple.” Her eyes were positively shining, as if she'd just finished some bravura performance on the stage.

Laura looked again at the redhead, who by her measure hadn't moved an inch from her spot in the corner, content to remain securely in the wings as this melodrama of her own creation played out. Her dress fanned out to drape artfully over both sides of the chair, and her legs were crossed daintily at the ankles, as if she were sitting for a portrait by Horst. If she appeared the least bit worried, she betrayed no sign of it.

“Fascinating,” Mrs. Metzger said, a weariness in her voice that signaled that this was not the first time someone had offered a barely plausible, if inane, version of events centered on the comings and goings of the unpredictable Miss Windsor and one of what was surely her many male visitors. She eyed the still-stoic girl evenly. “Miss Windsor, please make sure in the future that no more of your guests are given unauthorized ‘tours' within the building and that they leave through the
front
door. Are we understood?”

The girl turned her head slowly. “Of course,” she said, producing a smile suitable for a winning hand of bridge. “Always glad to be of service. Good afternoon.”

“Please don't forget your appointment with Mrs. Mayhew tomorrow morning, Miss Dixon,” Metzger added as she walked to the door. “Good day, ladies.”

No sooner had the door closed when Dolly flopped onto her bed. “Oh, good Lord!”

“Where
on earth
did you come up with that?” Laura asked.

“Hell if I know,” Dolly mumbled into the pillow. She turned her head, smiled. “Actually, I'm a little unsettled at my ability to lie that easily. I'm afraid it says something very terrible about me.”

“Nonsense,” Laura replied. “The only thing it tells me is that if I ever get in a jam, I want you there to get me out.”

Dolly giggled, sat upright. “Well, I guess this is as good a time as any for introductions,” she said, looking over at their guest. “I'm Dolly, this is Laura. Otherwise known as the girls who just saved your heinie.”

“Indeed,” the girl replied brightly, rising out of her chair. “Vivian Windsor, proud subject of the queen. Bravo. I knew I'd knocked on the right door. Christ, I need a fag.” She pulled a pack of cigarettes out of her pocket and lit one. She offered one to Dolly, who readily accepted.

Laura declined. “So, what really happened with Mr. St. Marks? I certainly hope he was worth the trouble.”

“Good girls don't kiss and tell. Which is, of course, precisely why I do. Despite Miss Dolly's colorful rendition, alas the real story rather pales in comparison, I'm afraid. So I think I'm going to adopt hers and have the lasting image be one of an absolute rat scurrying down the back staircase.”

Laura loved the girl's faintly aristocratic bearing, her stylish wit. She longed to hear her talk further. “I get the feeling this is not exactly a new experience for you.”

“You mean old Metzger? Oh, bosh no. We understand one another by now. She wags her finger and threatens to send me to the reformatory for bad girls, I say nothing, implying some form of contrition, and then we all happily move on. I must say that I'm not usually forced into such dramatics as intruding into the rooms of girls I haven't yet met. Terribly rude. So sorry. But any port in a storm and all that, you know? And look at it this way: If there's one thing the British know something about, it's good manners. So in order to show my gratitude for saving my lovely ‘heinie' today, I'd like to invite you girls out tonight, as my guests at the Stork.”

Dolly looked like she might faint. “The Stork Club!” she exclaimed. “Jeez! Are you serious?”

“It's just a nightclub, darling, not a date with Rock Hudson, but I'm nevertheless glad to note your enthusiasm. I start work at ten, so come anytime after that and I'll get you all squared away.”

Laura knew the Stork. It was a nightclub famous for its glittering roster of Broadway and Hollywood celebrities, who came there to dance and sip champagne. To imagine that she'd be in such a place on her first night in New York was almost unfathomable. “What do you do there?” Laura asked.

“Cigarette girl,” Vivian replied matter-of-factly. “One day I'll be singing with the band, mind you, but for now, it's strictly selling smokes and avoiding wandering hands.”

“You're a singer!” Dolly said, as if amazed that anything could prove more interesting than working at the Stork.

“Only for money,” Vivian replied. “Well, I must run. See you girls later. Toodles.” And with that she floated out the door, in a strikingly different manner than she'd come in.

As Laura contemplated the whirlwind that was Vivian Windsor—and how many more surprises lay within the walls of the baroque Barbizon Hotel for Women—Dolly had more pressing concerns. “Laura!” she wailed. “What in God's name are we going to
wear
?”

 

They should have hailed a taxi. But in all of the things she had quickly learned about Dolly, her frugality had been one of the first. Dolly had convinced her that since the Stork Club was only ten blocks away (a lie; that didn't count the cross blocks from Lexington to Fifth), and since it was also such a nice evening, it was best if they simply sauntered their way to the club.

It was when they reached Fifty-Third Street that Laura realized the magnitude of their mistake. She'd decided to wear her new black peep-toe heels, which were now pinching; she could already feel the beginnings of a blister on the back of her left foot. To make it all worse, the night had turned unexpectedly humid; her hair, carefully combed down to her shoulders in shiny waves, now felt like a Brillo pad.

By the time they reached the red awning stretching across the sidewalk,
STORK CLUB
blazoned in big, bold letters across it, she felt her spirits lifting. “Hi, we're friends of Vivian Windsor,” Dolly chirped to the dour doorman. He continued looking down at his clipboard, occasionally barking a terse order to a passing page or busboy. Dolly tried again. “I said, we're friends—”

“I heard you the first time, dear. I don't know any Vivian . . .”

“Windsor. She's a cigarette girl here,” Laura said. “She invited us.”

He looked up briefly, with an expression that conveyed that the only bigger waste of time than explaining to him that they'd been invited was telling him they'd been invited by the cigarette girl. “Oh, did she? Well, how kind of her majesty. I'm afraid you've come for nothing, ladies. The Stork Club does not admit unescorted women. Club policy, strictly enforced. Enjoy the rest of your evening.”

Her feet were killing her and her blood simmered from the rudeness of the rejection, yet the only thing Laura could think of was how her mother would have handled the situation. How she would have demanded to see owner Sherman Billingsley himself, then whipped up such a maelstrom that she would have ended up seated in a booth with Bing Crosby. But Laura was too sore and too tired from all of the earlier drama with Vivian to channel Marmy. “Come on, we'll take a taxi back,” she said.

Dolly pulled her away from the entrance. “Are you
crazy
?” she said. “We were invited to the Stork, and we are going into the Stork.” She grabbed Laura's hand, began yanking her down the block. “C'mon.”

For ten minutes they stood at the corner of Fifty-Third and Fifth, watching New Yorkers whir by in cabs, buses, the occasional DeSoto. Laura rested against a building and fantasized about soaking her feet, while Dolly stalked the intersection like a panther. Laura was just about to declare mutiny and announce that she was pouring herself into the next Checker cab no matter what when Dolly hustled over. “Okay, two o'clock. There's our ticket.”

Laura followed her eyes and spotted two men in their thirties—possibly forties—ambling down the street, smoking. One was bald and fat. The other was wiry and better dressed, but with narrow eyes that gave him the appearance of a henchman in a Jimmy Cagney movie. The men crossed the middle of Fifty-Third and fell into line behind a collection of couples entering the Stork. “You can't be serious.”

“Look, we only need two warm bodies to get us inside. Then we can do whatever we want.”

“Dolly, they're old enough to be my father!”

“Oh, c'mon, Laura! It's your first night in New York! It's the
Stork Club!
I thought you said you'd come here for adventure. Well, here it is!”

Before Laura could reply, Dolly was chugging back down the sidewalk, smiling at the approaching duo. “Excuse me, gentlemen, might I trouble either of you for a cigarette?”

“What's your name, cutie?” the skinny one asked Dolly. He fumbled in his jacket pocket for his cigarette case.
Oh, even better
, Laura thought.
I get the fat one
.

Hasty introductions and several puffs on a Camel later, Dolly had successfully smiled winsomely enough to get them escorted in. The doorman looked up in mild surprise. “You're lucky it's a slow night,” he muttered.

Laura found herself once again astonished by, and admiring of, Dolly's gumption.
I have to remember
that this is how you do things in New York
.

She hadn't taken more than a dozen steps inside when the throbbing inside her shoe began to subside. Even the chubby hand on the small of her back, guiding her to a table, didn't register.

She was in the Stork Club.

Facing the dance floor, the female singer was midway through an up-tempo orchestration of “My Secret Love,” all soft drumbeats and quietly shaking maracas, as couples gently swayed with the music, the men in dark suits, their damsels in tight-bodiced dresses. The air conditioning was at full tilt, but the air was thick with sweat and smoke and better perfume no doubt dispensed earlier in the evening from expensive cut-glass bottles on dainty dressing tables.
What is it like
, Laura wondered,
to come to a place like this all the time?
To have this be your normal routine, sitting at a small table in the company of a gentleman, a lamp-shaded candle between you, listening to the gentle clink of glasses and music that sounds like waves crashing upon sand?
She looked up at the plunging drapes on the windows, down to the gleaming wood of the dance floor, perked her ears to catch the echo of the loud, flirtatious laughter from the woman sipping champagne and sitting in the booth across the room, book-ended by two men in subtly striped suits. She fought to memorize the scene, every curve and bend and splash of light.
This is it. This is the beginning of my life
.

A strong hand on her wrist pulled her out of her thoughts. “Laura, look—there's Tallulah Bankhead!” Dolly whispered a bit too loudly, her stare directing Laura to a corner banquette, where a stoic, bony woman with forbidding, deep-set eyes and meticulously arched brows smoked a long cigarette as she appeared to ignore the chattering of the man next to her. It certainly
looked
like Tallulah Bankhead.

Laura glanced around the table. “Where did Mutt and Jeff go?”

“They got impatient for the waiter, so they went to get us drinks. I ordered you a brandy. It's what you drink here.”

“How would you know what you drink here?”

“I just know these things, Laura,” Dolly replied, scanning the crowd for the next Tallulah Bankhead.

“Well!” came a sardonic admonishment from their left, delivered with suitable English gusto. “I see the maidens fair of the Barbizon have arrived.”

“We shouldn't even be speaking to you!” Dolly hissed. “Do you have any idea what we had to do to get in here? They don't allow unescorted women, something you conveniently forgot to mention.”

“They also seem to have no idea who you are,” Laura chimed in.