Last Dance on the Starlight Pier, page 27
Her voice was a feather bed of luxuriant sympathy as she cooed, “Oh, sweetie, you’ve really been through the wringer, haven’t you? We have to fix that.” Without my saying another word, the quicksilver connection that had always existed between us lit up and she added, “Well, obviously, I have to talk to Dr. K and get all the details about the latest procedures for reversing sexual inversion.”
How could I have ever doubted her?
“I know that you’ll be trapped at the contest,” she went on. “So I’ll bring you the research as soon as I can get it. Sorry, it might be a while, though, since Dr. K has a practice in Houston and only comes into Galveston to give lectures and do rounds once a week to assess the psychiatric cases.”
Relief floated the words out of me. “Oh, Sofie, you’ve given me such hope. I already owe you so much. And now this? I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to thank you.”
“What are friends for?” she asked, brushing off my gratitude. “If I wasn’t pulling double shifts, I’d be at the Palace cheering you on every single day. But, the very instant I get that research, no matter what I’m doing, I’ll bring it to you.”
It was velvety dark by the time we stepped outside. Though the Starlight Palace blazed bright as a lighthouse guiding travelers to safe harbor, I still stared at it with deep uncertainty.
“Don’t worry,” Sofie said. “We live in an age of medical miracles.”
“We do,” I agreed. “Oh, Sof—”
“Come on,” she interrupted before I could try again to express the gratitude flooding me. “I can’t wait to show you the apartment. Complete with a guest room that has no checkout time.”
She grabbed my arm and, together, we strode down Seawall Boulevard as if we were Barbara Stanwyck and Joan Blondell playing bold career gals ready to take on the world.
CHAPTER 65
Thursday morning, though Sofie and I had stayed up until dawn talking, I was so buoyant with new hope and happy to be back in Galveston that I nearly skipped down the Starlight Pier. Even the brand-new uniform that Sofie had loaned me felt lighter than air. The fat gray-and-white gulls wheeling overhead filled the air with cries that felt like welcomes.
Workmen carrying lumber on their shoulders, painters with cans of paint and ladders, cleaners with buckets, brooms, and mops bustled about. The entire pier now shone beneath a fresh coat of white paint. The Starlight Palace, though, took my breath away. From a dowdy, woebegone tower of splintery, grayed wood it had been transformed into a Taj Mahal.
Or, at least a huge building that was so blindingly bright in the sun that, for a moment, I didn’t notice a guy in a bad suit lurking around in the shadows. Holding a clipboard.
“’Scuse me.” A plump fellow who was sweating profusely and dragging his partner behind him bumped me aside in his haste to join the mass of giddy young people already gathered outside the Palace’s double-door entrance. A handwritten sign read:
Registration for The Amadeo Family’s Dance Marathon in Celebration of the Grand Re-Opening of the Starlight Palace. Absolutely NO ADMITTANCE Until Opening Night. 6 P.M. Friday, July 1.
I pushed through the mob, stepped up to the local guards Pops had stationed in front of the doors, and prepared to explain that I was with the show. Before I could open my mouth though, a girl in the crowd behind me shouted, “That’s her. That’s Nurse Gravy!”
The girl was flanked by a dozen other teens. Several held up signs that identified them as “Zaviors!!”
A lanky girl waved her sign at me. “We Love GRAVY!!” She yelled at the guard, “Let her in. That’s Zave’s wife.”
“Who?” the guard, an old guy who cupped his hand behind his ear to hear better, asked.
“The Handsome Hoofer and the Nurse,” several of the girls screamed. “Don’t you read the papers?”
The guard’s mouth dropped in recognition. “You’re her?” he asked, standing aside. “They been waiting for you. You better get in there. On the double.”
As I moved through the crush, the girls all asked versions of the same two questions: “Where is Zave?” and “What is Zave really like?”
I hid my dismay at learning that, apparently, he wasn’t already there, and stepped into the Starlight Palace. From every corner, painters and cleaners clattered about, moving ladders and buckets.
The mammoth old dance hall that used to be a convention center that used to be a skating rink that used to be a sports arena had been considerably freshened up. Every door and window was wide open. Light flooded in and fresh ocean air blew through, chasing away the residual odor of must and decay from the rotting wood that had been painted over rather than replaced.
At the center of the frenzied activity were Pops and his right-hand man, Kane. Both were too busy to notice my entrance. Kane was planted mid-floor, legs wide, head swiveling from one side of the arena to the other as he pointed from the highest of the three tiers of wooden bleachers, to the newly installed box seats ringing the mammoth floor, to the wooden stage and band shell.
“Check out the windows,” Kane said, and Pops craned his neck to study the ceiling that rose high above the bleachers. Banks of windows circled the top. Most of them were broken. Swallows swooped in and out, soaring between nests in the rafters.
“Do you see what I’m talking about?” Kane asked. “If there’s the tiniest spark all those broken windows’ll act like a chimney. And those?” he asked, pointing to blackened electrical outlets with odd wires poking out. “Place is a firetrap.”
“Lucky we’re sitting on an ocean of water then, ain’t it?” Pops shot back.
“That show up in Maine,” Kane continued. “They were sitting on a mountain of water. Six feet of snow. That didn’t stop the hall from burning to the ground in half an hour. Four dancers died.”
Pops flapped his hand as if he was waving away an annoying gnat. “Well, ain’t you the Gloomy Gus. I heard all about that show. Last December, right? Who puts on a show in December in Maine? That numbskull, fly-by-night promoter Doc Winthrop’s who. Biggest chowderhead in the business. Nothin’ like that’s gonna happen here. Don’t even mention it.”
“Anyone looked at the wiring?” Kane probed.
Pops turned from a crew foreman who was holding a clipboard up so that the promoter could sign an invoice and growled at his head judge, “Don’t start in again on the fugging wiring. We got a budget.”
“Yeah,” Kane shot back. “A budget for paint and cosmetic repairs. This place is fifty years old. Some of those breakers down there in the utility room are insulated with newspaper.”
“So? What do you want me to do? Rebuild? Amadeos gave me a strict budget. Cosmetic only.”
Kane shook his head.
“Quit being a nervous Nellie. The Amadeos are highly safety conscious. See all those fire alarms?” He gestured to the array of gleaming new red metal alarm boxes that had been installed throughout the hall. “Plus, the county’s putting a fire marshal at the door to make sure we don’t go over capacity.”
“A sold-out house? That’s optimistic,” Kane scoffed.
“Jeez, look on the sunny side for once in your life, will ya, pal?”
“What about exits?” Kane asked.
“I don’t have time for this. Ask him about the fugging exits,” Pops said, waving at a passing workman. Kane started to do just that, but Pops called him back. “One other thing. The brother, JuJu, he wants to collect the take every day. At four in the morning.”
“Are you kidding me?” Kane asked.
“Do I look like I’m kidding?”
“So that means I have to close out and deliver the night’s take to him at four in the A friggin’ M? That makes no goddamn sense.”
“Tell me about it,” Pops lamented. “But, hey, pal, on this island, only thing that makes sense is what the Amadeos say makes sense. In Galveston, you play by Amadeo rules or you don’t play at all.”
“Yeah, sure, Pops. But every night? What kind of haul are those wops expecting to pull in? I mean, what’d you and the boys talk about when I wasn’t around?”
Kane fell silent when he caught sight of me.
Pops, following Kane’s gaze, boomed out, “Well, would you look at who finally decided to grace us with her presence? Where the hell you been? Amadeos have been riding my ass. Hard. You were supposed to be here early to fulfill publicity obligations as per the contract you signed.”
Kane, clearly not happy to see me, dove in before I could answer. “All the other pros are already here and registered. They’re not going to like us playing favorites. Rules state that—”
“Stuff your damn rules,” Pops ordered. “Since when have we ever made our stars stick to the rules. She’s here. That’s all that matters. The locals want her. The Amadeos really want her. She’s in the show. Hell, at this point, she is the show. End of story.
“You,” he said, jabbing an angry finger into my chest. “Get set up in the girls’ quarters.” The Pops who’d been snivelingly grateful for me saving him and his show back in Chicago was gone and the old Pops was back. “And hurry it up, then meet me back at the entrance. All the kids are going to help register locals.”
He clapped his hands and bawled out to everyone around him, “Back to work. We got a show to open in one day.”
“Pops?” I asked.
He glanced back. “Why are you still here?”
“Zave?”
“What about Zave? You tell me about Zave.”
“Is he here?”
“Does it look like he’s here?” he sneered. “Yeah, he’s in town. Somewhere. Checked in, then vanished. I don’t know what kind of good-bye you two had in Chicago and I don’t care, but he has been on the bender to end all benders ever since. All I care about is that you two had damn well better be the happiest married couple ever to step out of a honeymoon suite or, mark my words, there will be hell to pay.”
Buoyed by Sofie’s optimism, I promised him, “That won’t be a problem. Zave and I are together now. For real.”
“Evelina!” a familiar voice boomed out. Uncle JuJu hustled toward me, arms outstretched. “A little late, but you’re here now and that’s all that matters.” Clasping me in a one-armed hug while gesturing at the transformation of the Starlight Palace with the other, he asked, “What do you think?”
“It looks great. You look great.” And he did. Always an ebullient person, he now seemed positively giddy.
“Oh, Evelina,” he all but crooned, “I am so glad that you told Wyatt to call. None of this would have happened without you. Not this,” he said, gesturing expansively at the renovations. “And certainly not this.” Grinning, he extended a hand toward an elegant woman wearing an enormous sun hat that swooped down rakishly, hiding her face.
“Lamb chop,” JuJu called to her, “come over here.”
She approached at a languorous pace, silk beach pyjamas flowing about her as she moved. She reached us and peeked up from beneath the hat.
“Cleo?”
“You rang,” she answered jauntily.
JuJu turned me loose and Cleo filled his arms. She looked rested and restored from our Chicago ordeal. But there was something else, something more than just the golden tan and diamond earrings she sported. I couldn’t put my finger on it other than to say that, for the first time since I’d known her, she wasn’t a buzzing spring of sullen, coiled energy.
“Without you, Evelina,” JuJu continued, “Cleopatra and I might never have met.” He pronounced it “Clay-oh-pat-trah” and Cleo cuddled in a bit closer to him.
“Yeah,” Cleo said. “Thanks, Evie.” She held my eyes. “Seriously. I owe you. Come on, I’ll walk you to the girls’ quarters.”
As soon as we were out of JuJu’s earshot, she asked, “So?”
“So what do I think of you and JuJu? Or so? You can’t believe I’m here?”
“Both.”
“You and JuJu? Is it—”
“Real? It’s a hell of a lot more real than the ‘diamonds’ the nephew gave me in Chicago. Which turned out to be paste. The only thing real about Salvy was his goddamn wife.”
“The one who slipped you a Mickey?”
“The same. He swore from the start that he was leaving her. That lie was even faker than that damn bracelet. Cheap bastard. JuJu wants to buy me a house. Make our ‘arrangement’ permanent.”
“Cleo, that’s great. Listen, about Chicago. About leaving you the way I did, I’m sorry.”
“Evie, stop. You don’t have a goddamn thing to be sorry for. Thanks to you, I’m the one finally landed jelly side up for once in her life.”
“Cleo. Doll,” JuJu cried from the stage where he was consulting with the bandleader, Mel. “Could you help us out up here?”
“Be right there, hon,” she purred back. “He asks me about everything. I’ve been in on all the planning. He really wants to put on a quality show. Isn’t that cute?”
“Adorable,” I answered. I was going to tell her about me and Zave, but Cleo was already halfway across the floor, the pyjamas billowing around her like a vivid, striped cloud she was floating away on.
CHAPTER 66
The rest area, deserted now, was filled with cots crammed in between a row of sinks and showers. The horses had already claimed the best spots along the edges and stowed their footlockers, secured against thieves with heavy padlocks, under the cots.
Their clothes hung on pegs beside the cots. I recognized Minnie’s flour sack dress printed with pink and purple pansies, Gerta’s maroon dress, half-moons bleached under the armpits from sweat, and Lily’s moth-eaten, monogrammed bathrobe, a souvenir of her past.
I slid my suitcase under the cot next to Minnie’s, ran a comb through my hair, swiped on some lipstick, and headed back out. Signs advertising the sponsors Pops had already lined up were being hoisted above the bandstand. “Piedmont Cigarettes.” “Murdoch’s Bath House.” “Verkin Photo Company.” “Gaido’s Seafood Restaurant.” “Star Drug Store.”
Though none of the family’s dozens of betting parlors were mentioned, every Amadeo club, bar, and restaurant was: The Turf Athletic Club. The Studio Lounge. The Western. Murdoch’s Bingo. The Sui Jen Cafe. The star of the show, however, was “The Hollywood Dinner Club: The Southwest’s Most Elegant Nightclub.”
With a twinge, I thought of the graduation party Sofie and I almost had there. A tremendous squawk jolted me out of my moment of regret. The sound system came to life, followed by Alonzo’s amplified voice. “Testing. Testing. One. Two.” Thunk. Thunk. The emcee thumped a finger against the microphone.
Back at the entrance, several card tables were being set up directly in front of the big glass double doors. Striding down the pier to man them were most of the old gang. Fresh and rested from their hotel stay, they all looked like younger versions of the exhausted zombies I’d last seen in Chicago.
Zave wasn’t with them.
Minnie caught sight of me and her face lit up. She raised a scrawny arm and waved me over, announcing to the others, “Hey, shove over. Make room for Evie. She’s one of us now.”
Grabbing a chair for me, Patsy said with a grin, “Welcome to the club. So, you’re just a regular marathon poop now?”
“Looks that way,” I answered.
“Who’s gonna plaster our corns?” Ace wailed.
“Corns?” Patsy shot back, pulling his rubbery face into a cartoon expression of surprise. “I was working up to asking for an enema.”
Being packed in next to my friends reminded me of all the families I’d peeked at, crowded around a dinner table, talking and laughing, and just being together.
Minnie passed me a stack of legal-size documents with the instructions, “All you gotta do is ask these questions and write down the answers. If anyone seems buggy, you know, lice or something, take them back there for a check.” She jerked a thumb back toward a couple of standing screens set up behind us.
“Minnie,” DeWitt interrupted, “you forgot the most important thing.”
Minnie covered her toothless “oh” of surprise and hurried to add, “Yeah, sorry, Pops said he only wants the cream of the crop for this one.”
“Yep,” Patsy chimed in. “He said to be extra selective. Only people who are pretty to look at.”
“I guess that counts you out,” Ace quipped.
Patsy cocked his fist in pretend anger before continuing, “Anyway, no losers, deadbeats, leeches, mooches. No baldies or fatties. Crossed eyes are out. You get my drift?”
I nodded and that was the end of my training because the guards let the crowd in and hopeful locals swarmed the tables.
“Can I bring Mr. Beans with me?” asked my first candidate, a stout middle-aged woman wearing a wide-legged jumpsuit printed with enormous red and yellow hibiscuses, who thrust her bug-eyed Chihuahua into my face. The dog bared his tiny, sharp teeth. I told her absolutely not and she stormed off.
After that the questioning went smoothly. I asked the contestants what medical conditions they had. If they’d ever had a serious contagious disease, were subject to fits, wore a truss, or if they or anyone in their family had ever been in a mental asylum.
It was a little awkward to ask couples wearing patched trousers, threadbare dresses, and shoes with knots holding the laces together this required question: “Do you have sufficient wearing apparel to appear clean and neat at all times?” I wanted to pass these hard-luck duos on so that, at least, they’d get fed and sheltered and have something to hope for as long as they lasted. But Pops’s rule about wanting all the contestants to be attractive ruled most of them out.
The most important question and the only one no one was allowed to fudge on was, “Do you have lice?”
“You calling me lousy?” demanded a horse-faced man in high-waisted trousers when I made that inquiry.
“No, sir,” I answered calmly. “This is for your safety as much as anyone else’s. You will be in very tight quarters and an infestation of any kind would spread like wildfire.”
I stood up and started to ask him to step behind the screen so that I could comb through his hair, but he stomped away before I could finish. The waiting crowd hooted when, halfway down the pier and thinking he was out of sight, he scratched his hindquarters vigorously.
