The Fame Game (9 page)

When she got upstairs everybody was having a good time, playing their records and the television set all at the same time, and nobody even asked her if she had had a good time. The girls pretended she hadn’t even been out. Only her own little brother Cornelius finally asked her if she’d had fun, and she was so glad somebody had asked that she almost cried. Honey was in bed, not asleep yet, and Silky noticed that all the girls had taken off their television make-up, except Honey, as usual. She began to cream her face and finally she turned to Honey and said as sweetly as she could: “Hey, do you want some of this?”

“What for?” Honey said, in a very mean voice.

“To take off your make-up.”

“Kiss my ass,” Honey said, and turned over and pulled the covers over her head.

“What’s the matter with
her
tonight?” Silky asked the others. Nobody answered her. She felt her heart go up in her throat. Dick was right; they
were
jealous of her. But they had been her best friends for ever and ever—they couldn’t just stop liking her. She turned to Cheryl and Beryl, who had
always
been her best friends.

“What do you say I call down for some fish and chips?”

“Didn’t he feed you?” Cheryl said nastily.

“Sure, but I thought … it might be fun.”

“We’re not hungry,” Beryl said flatly. She turned the volume up on the stereo set.

“I don’t know what you’re all so mad about,” Silky yelled over the noise of the record. “He’s never going to call me again.”

“Why not? Did he find out how
frigid
you are?” Tamara yelled back.

“It’s not always like that,” Silky yelled.

“Oh yeah? Did he
pay
you for balling him? Is that why you want to buy all us poor niggers fish and chips?” The other girls laughed.

Something in Silky snapped. “You don’t know anything!” she screamed. “You take Marvin for everything you can get. What would you know about going out with a nice guy?”

“I guess you would,” Tamara yelled, her face getting purple with rage. “You only go out with big white directors, you ass-licker. Why don’t you fuck old ape-face Libra?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Beryl said. “Climb up a tree with him.”

“Silky fucks Libra, Silky fucks Libra,” they all began chanting. Her brother Cornelius just stood there looking stupid. Silky ran into the bathroom and slammed the door. She was shaking. It was like a nightmare. She realized it wasn’t just her date with Dick tonight, although that had been the last straw because he had so obviously singled her out to take her out in public with him to a fancy place where his friends might be. No, it had been coming for a long time, only she had been too stupid to notice it. It had really happened at the show today, when the Satins realized Silky was their star. They had to realize it because everybody else realized it. But it wasn’t her fault. They had
let
her be the lead singer. She had pretended she hadn’t even wanted to be. She hadn’t asked for more money than they were getting, or a different costume than they were wearing. It hadn’t been her idea to stand in front of them at her own microphone; the lead singer always did that. She hadn’t flirted with Dick Devere. She hadn’t done a damn thing. And that was the shit and piss of it. She didn’t have to
do
a damn thing—it was all going to happen to her just because God had given her this voice and she could sing. She wanted to run out into the street, but she didn’t have a place to stay. Was this what being a star was going to mean? Having Mr. Libra treat her like trash all day and then having the girls treat her like a hated enemy every night?
Oh, my God, Dick
… she thought, and she realized she missed him. He was the only person who understood her. She wished she knew his number so she could call him. She pounded the sink with her fist and looked at her face, ugly now with rage, and all the make-up off, in the mirror. Without her wig, with her short, straightened hair all smashed down, she looked like a boy. If he saw her now he wouldn’t like her any more either. She was nothing to look at. But he hadn’t seemed to care about how she looked. He thought she was a nice person. He would understand. She couldn’t stay here with them, not after what they had said to her.

She wiped off the last of the cold cream with astringent and combed her hair so it didn’t look so much like a horrible crew cut. Then she went out of the bathroom. The girls continued to ignore her. Cornelius, who had always been a cry-baby depending on her to settle his fights, was just looking at her trying to figure out what the fuss was all about. Silky picked up her purse and her jacket and walked out of the room.

Downstairs in the lobby phone booth she looked up Dick Devere in the phone book and called him. Her hand was shaking so much she could hardly get the dime into the little slot, but she felt icy cold inside. He answered after two rings.

“Yes?”

“It’s Silky. I’m sorry to bother you, but you were right.” Then she burst into tears.

“What’s the matter?” he asked. “What is it? I can’t hear you. What happened? Oh, the hell with it, have you got a pencil?”

“Yes,” she sobbed.

“Take down my address and come right over here. I’d come get you but I’m not dressed.”

She found an eyebrow pencil in her handbag and scribbled his address on the wall. She remembered it anyway from the phone book. Then she got a cab and went to his apartment, which was not too far away, and by the time she got there she realized with surprise and triumph that she had done quite an extraordinary thing, because this was really what she had wanted to do all along.

Dick Devere lived in an apartment in a brownstone. Silky pushed the buzzer next to his name, and went upstairs. He opened the door, dressed in a white terry-cloth bathrobe, and she could see the apartment was dark. He put his arm around her and cuddled her head to his chest, casually locking the door behind her with his other hand.

“There, there,” he said.

It was so dark she couldn’t see how awful she looked with all her make-up off and her face swollen from crying. She could hardly see him either, just a white glimmer in the light from the street lamp outside the big window. “There, there,” he kept saying, patting her, and he led her into the bedroom and right to bed.

She thought briefly about her vow while he was undressing her, and then she didn’t think about it any more because he was kissing her. It was lovely, and she thought maybe she loved him. He knew just what to do and it wasn’t at all like those boys when she was a kid who just shoved it in. Oh, my God, he was divine … Was
this
what sex was like? If she had known this was what it was all about, she would never have been able to give it up. She’d heard plenty of talk about all these things he was doing, but nobody had ever told her how groovy and wild and really marvelous feeling it
felt
. So this was what all the older girls did with their boyfriends! And it was a good thing he knew what to do, because he was
enormous
. She certainly hadn’t expected that.

He really knew everything there was to know about loving, and she was sure sex wasn’t always like this, that what was so fantastic was
him
, what he was all about, what he was thinking, how he felt about her. He was a real man. She didn’t think there was anybody like him in the whole world.
I love you
, she thought,
I love
you, I love you
. She thought he was whispering “I love you” too, but she wasn’t sure.

When it was over they curled up together with their arms around each other. Her eyes had become accustomed to the darkness and she could see him. He looked happy. She knew she was happy.

“Silky,” Dick whispered.

“What?”

“I can’t sleep like this, you’ll have to get over on the other side of the bed. Do you feel better now?”

“Yes,” she said, and reluctantly inched away from him.

“Good,” he said, and a moment later he was asleep.

She couldn’t think much about that because she felt too marvelous. This had been one of the biggest days of her life. He certainly didn’t have a wife or any girl living with him.
I wonder if I have a boyfriend now
, she thought, looking at him, and she wished more than anything in the world, more even than to be a star, that it could be true.

She didn’t see the girls until the next day in Mr. Libra’s office, and no one mentioned the fact that she had been out all night, or asked her where she had slept. Silky hoped the girls would think she’d had to rent a room at the Y, or go back uptown to Harlem. She tried to look martyred, but she was bubbling with happiness. The truth was, she realized regretfully, the girls really didn’t know much about her, how she thought, what she dreamed. They knew she wanted to sing and they knew she read books, but actually she had never had a private conversation with any of them. She’d just gone along with what they wanted, sharing their jokes, kidding around, trying to be part of the gang. She realized now that none of the others had tried to be part of the gang at the expense of their own wants; they’d balled any guy they wanted and spent their money on their own clothes and make-up and perfume and gone their own way.
She
was the one who’d worked in that restaurant while they were out balling,
she
was the one who sang lead and carried the group.
She
was the one who’d had to memorize all those lyrics while they just went “ooh, ooh, ooh” in back of her. She wondered if they were sorry they had driven her out of their room into the night, and then she began to realize that she would never really know if they were sorry because she was their meal ticket and they had to be nice to her or there would be no Silky and the Satins. She’d always considered herself a cool and tough little chick, but now Silky realized there were depths of toughness she hadn’t even reached yet. A year ago, when they started the group, she never would have believed they would be treating each other the way they were now, or that she would be able to accept how important she was and how much they needed her. And who was she? She wasn’t even sure she was a good singer. She’d never taken a lesson; people just seemed to like her voice and her delivery. Maybe she was a fake, and she’d conned the girls into believing she was necessary to them.

Mr. Libra was telling them that he’d hired someone to work up an act for them and that they’d begin to do bookings in small clubs out of town. Then they’d come back and do another Let It All Hang Out Show. The reaction to the show they had done the day before had been excellent, and now the clubs were willing to have them. They were going to need more costumes, and he was going to let them have two rooms instead of the one they now had.

Silky breathed a sigh of relief. Two rooms was better than one, but what she really wanted was a room of her own so the girls couldn’t pick on her. She’d left Dick in the morning and he said he would call her, but he hadn’t said anything about her coming to live with him and she certainly wasn’t going to ask. If she did, she might lose him. When their meeting was finished, she asked Mr. Libra if she could have a word with him. The girls gave her a look that could kill and left.

“Well?” Mr. Libra said.

“Mr. Libra, I hate to tell you this, but things have gotten real bad between me and the girls. They seem to hate me. I think they’re jealous. They’re making me miserable and it’s bad for my work. I think I should have a room of my own. I’ll pay for part of it out of my allowance.”

“You think if you have your own room they’ll be
less
jealous?”

“No, I guess they’ll be even madder.”

“Isn’t there even one of them you can get along with?”

“No,” Silky said. “They stick together.”

“You want me to talk to them?”

“Oh, no!” she said, frightened. “You don’t know them! That would fix me for sure.”

“I don’t care how you girls get along privately,” Libra said, “but I don’t ever want to see any sign of a feud in front of anyone or I’ll get rid of all of you. I don’t need that. I’ll give you your own room if you’ll make it your responsibility to see that everything is sweetness and light in public. After all, you’re the one they don’t like, according to you. They like each other.”

“Could you explain that to them? Tell them that you’re giving me my own room to get me out of their sight, not because I’m the star or anything?”

Mr. Libra smiled nastily. “Do you think they’ll believe that?”

“Well, they’ll
never
believe it if
I
tell them.”

“Don’t I have enough to do without worrying about your schoolgirl feuds?” he exploded.

Silky felt herself trembling. That man always scared her to death. But she wasn’t going to back down now, because not getting her own room would be worse than anything Mr. Libra could do to her.

“I think this would be the best thing to do,” Silky said, trying not to sound frightened.

“Do you think I’m the keeper of a bunch of juvenile delinquents? You girls think you’re professionals, but you still act like slum bunnies.”

“I’m sorry, sir, but you’re the only one I can turn to.”

“I suppose if you don’t get your own way you’ll end up shacking up elsewhere anyway, probably with some guy,” Mr. Libra said in disgust.

Silky didn’t answer.

“All right,” he said, and reached for the phone. “Get out. You’ll get your own room. I’ll tell the girls. You can move your things this afternoon.”

“Thank you, Mr. Libra.” But he waved her away, already talking to the desk at the hotel, asking for the manager, and she ran out of the suite.

Now that she had her own room it was much easier to talk to Dick on the phone, when he finally did call that evening, and she could go and come as she pleased. She bought a radio, because after chipping in for the room rent she didn’t have enough to pay for her own TV set, but Silky was glad anyway just to have the quiet and privacy. Rehearsals started for their new act, and there were new songs to learn. She saw the girls at rehearsal, at dance class, and in Mr. Libra’s office, but they never asked her to have meals with them and she usually picked up something at the delicatessen to take to her room or forgot to eat at all. Her brother Cornelius moved in with her for a while, but soon found it boring, and moved in with some kids he’d met who lived in the Village, and that was the last of him except when he needed money.