Juliana Read online

  “Ooh,” I said, my head reeling. “I feel like dancing.”

  “Yes, why don’t you kids dance?” Max said. “I‘ll order the food.” He picked up the menu.

  “Come on, Aggie,” Dickie said. “I haven’t cut the rug with you in more than a year.”

  “Dickie,” Max said, “why don’t you ask Virginia to dance. Aggie and I have some business to discuss.”

  “Max, don’t do this,” Virginia said.

  “Come on, Aggie. Come be with us.” I tried to coax her.

  “Max and I are going to talk,” Aggie said. “Business.”

  “You don’t mind dancing with Virginia? Do you, Dickie?” Max said.

  “Will you stop it, Max?” Virginia said.

  “Uh, no, I don’t mind,” Dickie said.

  “What’s the matter, Virginia? You like them young, don’t you?”

  “Not as young as you apparently do,” she said, getting up.

  Dickie offered Virginia his arm, and she took it, but not before making a face at Max.

  As Danny passed by Max’s seat, Max stood up. “Dan, can I speak with you a moment?”

  Danny looked over at me and said, “Uh, excuse me.”

  “But Danny and I are going to dance,” I complained.

  Danny went off with Max, and I sat down by Aggie. “So, Aggie. What do you think?”

  “About what?”

  “About everything. Max?”

  “Isn’t Max dreamy?”

  “But what about Dickie?”

  “He’s such a boy,”—then catching herself—“oh, but I love him dearly. But Max is sophisticated, and he’s going to help me with my career. Max liking me is good for me and Dickie. Tell him that, Al.”

  “Why don’t you tell him?”

  Danny stood by me. “Ready?” He led me to the dance floor.

  The musicians played a fox-trot. Neither Danny nor I were good dancers, but we hung on to each other and loped around the floor so no one noticed. Another lightbulb flickered out.

  “So?” I asked, looking up at Danny. “What happened with Max?”

  “It was nothing. It’s just … Max wants to see how I’d look in a tuxedo. He knows some people who can get me a tuxedo that fits right. Not clownish like Dickie’s.”

  “I think Dickie looks cute.”

  “Max says that the right tuxedo can make me look like a success like him, and looking like a success makes you successful. He wants me to come by his place tomorrow afternoon for a fitting.”

  “You’re going to let him buy you clothes? But you don’t know him.”

  “Not clothes. One tuxedo. And I’m gonna pay him.”

  “With what?”

  “I work.”

  “Enough to pay for a tuxedo?”

  “Al, he knows Hemingway. He can get you a part on Broadway.”

  “Danny, this seems so queer.”

  “It’s not. He’s a generous man, and he’s my friend.”

  “Your friend? You met him last week.”

  “Come with me, Al.”

  “To his place? No. I have to look for a job tomorrow.”

  “Afterward. I’ve never been to a fitting before. I don’t even know exactly what one is. You’ll come, won’t ya?” He didn’t wait for my response ’cause he knew what it was gonna be. “He knows people who can help us.”

  “I know,” I said as we slipped around the floor in each other’s arms. I wasn’t so sure Max’s offer of help included me. I wanted to be happy for Danny and Aggie, but I kept seeing Dickie and me standing outside the stage door in torn coats with tin cups begging for our suppers like Carrie’s husband in that novel Sister Carrie.

  The musicians switched to a swing, and they only played the wrong notes a few times. I danced up a storm, doing all my best clumsy moves—drinking did that to me—while Danny did his quiet little steps.

  Dickie was going wild and Virginia was making a gallant effort to keep up. He started doing a solo and mixed in some tap. Then, he surprised Virginia by lifting her over his head and putting her down behind him. Everyone formed a circle around him, watching. Then …

  A woman’s voice. Singing. The sound like warm milk slipping down the whole of my body. I moved away from the others to get closer to the stage. There she was. Perfectly still in a long, black, silk gown that caressed her slender form, long, black gloves, and coal-black hair that drifted down to her shoulders in soft waves. Her lips were painted a deep red. Vaguely, I heard Danny complain, but all I could see was this … this person. She’d replaced the musicians with new ones, good ones, and she was leaning against the piano caressing a red rose to her cheek as she sang “My Romance” in a way I’d never heard it before. The chatter of conversations stopped; all eyes were on her. She smiled at the young piano player and glided toward the edge of the stage.

  “Beautiful, isn’t she?” Max said, standing between Danny and me. “She’s my protégé.”

  “Who is she?” Dickie asked.

  “Juliana,” Max said.

  Chapter Five

  I made my way to MacDougal Street. The heat continued to bear down on the city, and there was rarely a breeze. But I didn’t mind. I’d found a job that morning. Not in the theater like I’d wanted, but in the typing pool of the Home Insurance Company.

  I went down the steps to Max’s basement apartment and pushed the doorbell. It didn’t work, so I knocked. Max came to the door wearing a dark jacket, white shirt, but no tie.

  “Oh, it’s you,” he said.

  “I knew you’d be glad to see me.”

  He led the way into his small parlor. Much smaller than I expected from someone who’d been throwing around so much money a few nights before. The furniture was heavy, thick with dark wood and dark upholstery. A small upright piano sat in the corner of the room, and a mirror with delicately sculpted leaves hung over the couch.

  “Danny told me I should—” I began.

  “Hey, Max, could you …?”

  Danny came around the corner; a man with pins in his mouth crawled behind him, saying in a French accent, “Monsieur, you must hold still.” Danny wore a tuxedo shirt and jacket, but no pants. He held a tie in his hand.

  “Danny, where are your pants?” I exclaimed.

  “Oh!” He ran from the room.

  “Monsieur, Monsieur!” the man with pins in his mouth hissed as he scurried on his knees after him.

  “Oh, gosh,” I said, covering my eyes with my hand.

  “What’s the big deal?” Max asked. “He’s your beau. Surely, you’ve seen each other in various states of undress? ”

  “Not since we were three and four.”

  “Then you’ve never …?” He twirled his cigarette through the air to fill in the blank.

  “No.” I sat on the couch. “Of course, we never. I’m not that kinda girl.”

  “Excuse me, then. It appears the boy needs my help with his tie.”

  I jumped up. “I tie his ties.”

  “Be my guest.” He bowed. “Of course, that’s assuming you know how to tie a bow tie.”

  “No.”

  “Then, I believe the job just became mine . If you’ll excuse me.”

  It wasn’t exactly true that Danny and I had been so “pure” with each other. Right after prom, Danny drove his mom’s Hudson to Huntington Harbor and we watched the moon over the rowboats.

  “Ya know, Al,” Danny had said, “I love you.” He inched his fingers across the car seat toward mine and we linked hands. “You know that, don’t ya?”

  “Of course. I feel the same.”

  Then he leaned closer and kissed me on the lips, and the kiss turned into one of those deep kisses with his tongue. The first time he did that I didn’t like it, but after a while I got to like it a lot. But when he put his hand on my dress near my breast, I jumped. He’d never done that before.

  “Do you mind awfully?” he asked. “I’m sorry.”

  “No. You just surprised me, but I don’t think I mind.”

&
nbsp; He got this happy look on his face and kissed me some more and put his hand first on one of my breasts, and then he slid over to the other one. He started unbuttoning the front of my dress, and I think I was sposed to stop him, but I didn’t want to. I didn’t feel anything in particular, but I still liked it ’cause it was Danny, and it made me feel grown-up like we were married.

  He kept kissing me while he put his hand on my knee and then the inside of my thigh. That’s when I did start feeling something I was positive I wasn’t sposed to feel, and I remembered hearing my mother talking with her friend, Ruth, about this sixteen-year-old girl who lived down the block. The girl had gotten into “trouble,” and Ruth said it was such a shame and my mother said, “That girl shouldn’t have let it go so far.”

  I asked, “But wasn’t the boy there, too?”

  My mother said, “Boys can’t help themselves; it’s up to the girl to see that things don’t go too far.” And Danny’s hand was crawling up and I kept feeling like I wanted him to keep going, but that girl got sent to a home. I didn’t want to get sent to a home, but that feeling was growing and I wanted more of it, but I definitely didn’t want to go to a home, but that feeling growing, growing, it’s all up to the girl, growing, growing, sent to a home.

  “Stop!” I yelled.

  Terrified, Danny yanked his hand away. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

  I looked around the “great” Max’s room. On the piano, there was a small bronze statue of a naked man with a leaf covering his thing, and there was another naked man statue on the windowsill, whose thing was only covered by Max’s philodendron that was crawling down the wall. The doorbell went thud. Then, there was a knock.

  “Get that, will you?” Max called from the other room.

  I opened the door. “Aggie.”

  “Al,” she said, sashaying into the room like she belonged there. “I didn’t know you were gonna be here, too.” She wore a bright-blue shirtwaist dress with a pale-blue taffeta scarf and a navy bolero hat.

  “Is that a new dress?” I asked.

  “Yes. Isn’t it dreamy?” She spun around so that the skirt flared out. “Bloomies. Today.”

  “Bloomingdales! Not Bloomies . Bloomingdales. That’s what we say. We come from Huntington. Remember? Just two weeks ago. And you can’t be spending so much money. That has to last till you get a job. Did you even start looking yet?”

  “Calm down. You’ll be a wrinkled old lady in six months. You didn’t mind me buying you that gown to go to the club.”

  “I’m gonna pay ya back,” I said, softly, ashamed.

  Aggie used to tell everyone at school her father owned Grumman Aircraft so they’d think she was rich. Actually, he worked in the supply department, giving out tools to the other workers. He’d been wounded in the head when he was fighting in The Great War so he couldn’t do much else.

  “Where’s Dickie?” I asked her.

  “Working. Max said I should come over. He’s gonna audition me.”

  “Oh, yeah? And what’s he auditioning you for , Aggie?”

  “Don’t go getting suspicious. He wants to hear me sing. That’s all.”

  “Are you sure that’s all he wants?”

  “Who cares?”

  “You’re not serious.”

  “Very.” She opened one of the buttons of her dress and shook her breasts at the naked statue on the piano.

  “Aggie!”

  “Why do you make such a big deal outta things? Dickie and I have already done it.”

  “No. We’re sposed to stay virgins till we get married.”

  “You can. Not me.”

  It was like I was talking to some other person. What happened to the Aggie I was in Brownie Troop 360 with? No, this was just one of those phases my mother said girls go through. Okay, Aggie always liked the boys. Folks in the neighborhood used to gossip about how much she liked them, but they didn’t understand. It wasn’t that she liked the boys; it was that they liked her. They were always coming around. What was she sposed to do? But I knew she always stayed pure .

  “So, you did it with Dickie,” I said. Big breath. “That’s okay. You two are practically engaged. But Max. Aggie, you wouldn’t …?”

  Max entered. “My dear, Aggie—oh, that name. We must do something about that name.”

  “That’s a perfectly good name,” I said. “Tell him, Aggie.”

  “Oh, what would you know with a name like Al?”

  “Alice! My name is Alice.” I was usually shouting, “Al! My name is Al!” This New York City was turning everything upside down.

  “For your admiration allow me to present,” Max said, “the very next Hemingway, Mr. Daniel Boyd.”

  Danny stepped into the room wearing a tuxedo with the bow tie perfectly tied. The man with pins crawled on his knees behind him, but now the pins had been replaced with a tape measure around his neck. I’d never seen Danny look so … handsome. Almost like a man.

  “Pierre,” Max said, “it fits perfectly. You’ve done a fine job. When can you have it ready?”

  “By next week, Maxwell. It is nothing.” He snapped his fingers. “Monsieur, please to remove your clothes so that I may take them with me.”

  “In a minute,” Danny said, bending to look at himself in the mirror behind the couch. “This darn curl,” he said, pushing it off his forehead.

  “No. Don’t do that,” Max corrected.

  “No?” He turned to Max. “I was thinking of having my hair cut different so this thing didn’t keep—”

  “You must never cut that curl, young man. It makes you distinctive.”

  Danny turned back to the mirror. “Really? Okay. You’re the guy who knows about those things.”

  Danny turned to me. “So, Al?” He stood stick straight, desperately wanting my approval. “Well? What do ya think? How do I look?”

  “Okay,” I said, sounding as bored as I could.

  “Just okay?”

  “Time to take it off, and give it to Pierre so he can make magic.” Max patted Danny’s shoulder and Danny went off to the other room with Pierre. “So, let’s start those auditions!” He seated himself on the piano bench.

  “Auditions, plural?” I asked, panicked.

  “Yes. You want to be first?”

  “No!” I gasped. “I don’t have anything prepared.” Actually, during the week I had run away from a Broadway audition.

  “You must always be prepared. Oops.” Max stood. He held the lapels of his jacket. “Ladies, do you mind?”

  “No,” Aggie said. “Be comfortable.”

  Max removed his jacket and sat back down. His fingers ran over the keys. “Aggie?”

  “Here, I’ve brought some music.” She handed it to Max. Max raised his eyebrows, but he began playing the opening chords of “My Romance,” the song Juliana had sung at the club. Before beginning, Aggie gave Max a big smile while she ran a hand over her breasts, opening a second button. Then, she began to sing. Not as good as Juliana. I thought it was a stupid choice.

  Max stopped playing and took a deep breath. “I think you should do something else. Only Juliana can be Juliana. Do you have something more, say, up-tempo?”

  “Yes. How ’bout …?” And then without handing Max any music she started singing “Heat Wave.” She danced around the piano, wiggled her hips, took off her scarf, and ran it over Max’s face and neck. She bounced on the overstuffed chair and stepped down in her white high heels. Max caught up on the piano.

  She was good and only tripped a few times. When she finished, Max smiled and hit a chord on the piano. “Well! You’re a surprise.” He jumped up from the bench. “A little rough around the edges, but Maxwell P. Harlington the Third can smooth those out. We have important work to do, Miss Wright, if we’re going to make you a star.”

  Aggie jumped up and down and threw her arms around Max and kissed him on the cheek.

  “We must celebrate!” Max said.

  He made us drinks in his kitchen. It was the first time I’d
had a gin and tonic highball.

  “To a bright new star,” Max said, holding his glass high.

  We clinked glasses. Max rested his cigarette in the ashtray. “We must have more, Miss Wright!” And he took her hand and danced her over to the piano. He played and they sang together and Max gave her pointers, and he forgot all about me auditioning for him. I decided I would go home that night and practice my Saint Joan speech.

  Danny and I had to leave Max’s place early ’cause Danny had to get to Bickford’s for the dinner rush. While I sat on the couch waiting for Danny, who had run to the bathroom, Aggie sat at the piano studying the music to a piece Max had suggested would be right for her. Max sat down in the chair opposite me, smoking. I wasn’t sure what to say to him so I said, “Uh, Max, that girl—your protégé …”

  “Juliana.”

  “Yeah. Uh, I was wondering if she was gonna be appearing again soon at—”

  “Not at the Moon in June, but she is booked for a few Wednesdays at the end of the first show at The Tom Kat.” He took a puff from the end of his cigarette holder and flicked the ash into a homemade ashtray, dried clay made from some child’s insecure fingers. That seemed like a strange thing for Max Harlington to have in his apartment. “Would you like to meet her?”

  “I just liked her singing. I wouldn’t wanna bother her. Of course, if the others—”

  “Meet me here next Friday, six. ”

  “Will she be here ?”

  Max’s eyes smiled at me. “Would you like that?” He exhaled a long stream of smoke.

  Danny was coming toward us.

  Max whispered. “Come alone. Bring money.”

  Chapter Six

  I stood outside Max’s door, crushing my purse into my stomach. I’d worn my nicest dress, peach with pearly buttons and a high ruffled collar. My nana bought it for me so it fit.

  I was about to knock when I heard singing coming through the door. It was her! I took in a breath and knocked. Max opened the door, and I stepped into a room filled with her voice.

  “You like it?” Max asked. “It’s a phonograph record we made together last year.”

  Her voice, sweet and funny, drifted toward the ceiling. She was singing “My Romance.”