Thriller, page 7
When she came back to the Courtright, she fell in love with another one of them. Before you could blink a false eyelash, she was off with him to Chicago. Lucky girl.
I wish I could move to Chicago. They’re having fun in Chicago.
I used to have fun. With Wesley. That feels like a long time ago. But there was a war and three years in between then and now. I was a freshman and Wesley was a senior. We dated that entire school year till he went off to Europe with the army. When he left, he made me promise to marry him. I was fourteen, almost fifteen. How could I know what love was? We had fun. Was that all love was supposed to be?
Wes came back a couple months ago. Different. Mature. Serious. And crusty.
Wes doesn’t like that I work the Courtright with all those loose men running around. I told him, “I have my daddy’s blessing. Why not yours?” To which he turned all growly and balled his fists. To which I turned around and walked away. To which he yanked me back by the shoulder and nearly pulled my arm out of its socket.
“Stop it. You want me to tell Pa you’re hitting me?”
“Sorry, I don’t mean to—these things in me get all gnarled up sometimes.”
“Things?”
“Memories . . . what I saw over there.”
“Maybe it would help if you talked about it?”
“Doing what married people do in bed will help.”
“Why would I wanna marry a crusty old man like you?”
“The war turned my hair gray.”
“Why do we gotta rush it? I’m still in high school.”
“You need to grow up, Paisley. I can’t wait forever.”
“Then, let’s not.”
But I wasn’t ready to marry him. So, to get him off my back, we head to an abandoned warehouse near his father’s steel foundry.
That was fun.
And it bided me some time. But the Courtright was my escape. My excuse for not having to spend all my free time with Wes.
One evening, after the dinner rush, I got called to take a tray to room 214. Mr. Marion Hollister. There was no funny business. I promise you that. He knows my father is the Methodist minister because Pa takes up residence down by the river where Mr. Hollister and his crew load out their casks of hooch.
Pa does what he can to get them to mend their heathen ways. Pa’s no snitch and the gin runners like to keep him around. He’s a good conversationalist. But when they need Pa to scram, they send him on some charity errand. Pa falls for it every time. Poor, crusty chap doing what he can to save the lost. Pearls to swine, I told him. You’re just throwing pearls to swine.
Hollister and his men are just not law-abiding citizens.
“Especially when the law is so dumb,” said Hollister.
“I don’t know much about laws. But I do know people. And people gotta drink and smoke.”
“You’re a smart gal.”
“Thank you, Mr. Hollister.”
“Nah—call me Viper.”
I laugh. And then I feel badly. I’ve hurt his feelings; he doesn’t show it.
“Guess that does sound kinda silly to a girl from Belnap.”
“I should get back to the floor.”
“Yeah. I know . . . you’re not that type of girl.”
I hand Marion his tray and he takes the plate of food and sees me to the door with a generous ten dollar tip. I thank him and pocket the tip, thinking that it will cover new material for a third evening gown.
“I’ve heard you singing.”
“You have? At church?”
“I ain’t been to no church. Around the dining hall. After the dining hall closes and you’re doing set ups for the breakfast service. You have a beautiful, beautiful voice. I could listen forever.”
“You ever been to any church?”
“No. But I’m human. I have a soul too.”
“I’m not judging. I leave that job to my father. I should go.”
“I mean it, Viv.”
“Viv? My name’s Paisley.”
“Your middle name’s Vivian, ain’t it?”
“How’d you know?”
“Paisley Vivian Nelson! I heard your pa yell it when he wanted you to come up from the river. Boy, did you jump when he called out.”
The Viper laughs now. His face is honest. Yearning. Soft, even. Just around the eyes. I don’t take offense. I’m surprised he was paying attention to me at all.
“I’m not kidding you, doll. Voice like a goddess.”
“No one’s ever told me that before.”
“You ever think about heading outta Belnap?”
“To where?”
“You could rival the best club singers in Chi-town.”
Viv. I kinda like the sound of that. It’s grown up. Sultry.
Not a bit crusty.
Wesley Milton
I returned from France, June 2, 1919, and went directly to Paisley’s house to ask for her hand. I was told by the Reverend Percival Nelson that I had to wait until Paisley graduated from high school the following June before I married her. I had already waited three years. What was one more, the Reverend told me.
I waited three months.
Saturday night of Labor Day weekend I presented the ring to Paisley and slid it on her finger.
I didn’t see any twinkle in her eyes. Not even a smile. She kept staring at that ring like it was a spider she wanted to swat off her hand.
“Don’t you wanna show your ma?”
“It’s late. She’ll probably be asleep.”
“She’ll be up waiting to see you.”
“I want to take a walk. Down by the river. Alone.”
“There’s nothing but drunks and gin runners down by the river now that the sun’s set. It’s not safe.”
“Have you told your folks?”
“My mom helped me pick out the ring.”
“Tell her it’s very nice.”
“Very nice? Is that all you can say?”
“It is. What do you want me to say?”
“I spend three years walking in French mud, slinging artillery, and all you can offer up is ‘nice’?”
“I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, Wes. I’m just in shock. That’s all.”
I coulda slept with silk-faced girls like Paisley in every little French countryside town. But I didn’t. I only slipped up twice. And each time was after a couple shell-shocked weeks on the battlefield. Paisley could never understand. The intensity. The horror. The bloody dreams.
The need for release. I’ll never mention it to her. She’ll never need to know. It’ll drift out of my brain once we’re married, and the babies come. And life turns to addictive monotony at my father’s steel mill.
Nice?
Waiting for her wasn’t nice. It was hell.
I follow Paisley down to the river, approaching the gin runners who are loading up their flatboat. Paisley twists her engagement ring around to hide the diamond in her palm. Then, she slips her hand into her dress pockets. They talk for a long time until my blood’s hot as an active battlefield and I know if I go down there, someone will end up dead.
Paisley waits on the sidelines until I see that gin runner motion to her and pull her aside. There’s that twinkle in her eye that I’ve been longing for.
The next morning I’ve calmed enough to go to her house to confront her about it. Her mother calls up to her room. Paisley never sleeps in this late. But they made an exception last night, Mrs. Nelson tells me, because Paisley was with me, and she knows we have a lot to talk about now that there’s a wedding to plan.
Have we set a date yet, she wonders, because Paisley didn’t have a lot to say about it at 2:00 a.m., coming home smelling like liquor and cigarettes. She and the Reverend don’t approve of the pub, just to be clear. But this time, it’s an exception. There have to be exceptions in life, she believes. She hopes they will be getting married soon. It’s not good to let one’s passions get the best of us.
One of Paisley’s little brothers calls down to us. Her clothes—including her two gowns—are missing. Her toiletries, pillow, and a few personal items are also missing. And she left this.
Little brother ran to me and stuck his hand out. Pinched between his thumb and forefinger was Paisley’s engagement ring.
Marion Hollister
(a.k.a. Viper)
I picked her up at Union Station. She came on my dime, and I took her directly to the north shore apartment where I had set her up with Jossie, another hostess at Clive’s Club.
When I opened the door to the fifth floor, single-room apartment, Paisley dropped her bag and went right for the window. Outside was an unobstructed portrait of Lake Michigan. She beamed at the view like she had just discovered there actually was gold at the end of a rainbow.
“What’d your folks say when you left?”
“Nothing.”
“You didn’t tell ‘em, did ya? You leave a note?”
“’Course not. I don’t want them to come looking.”
“They will, anyhow.”
“No. They’re Swedish and stubborn.”
“I know the type.”
“Where’re your folks?”
“Virginia. Last I saw them.”
“They dead?”
“Maybe. It’s been years.”
“What about that fiancé?”
“I didn’t know you knew.”
“I saw the ring. What’d you do with it?”
“Don’t need it.”
“He gonna come here causing trouble?”
She peeled herself from the window with a look that told me she had never considered that part before.
“It’s hard to say.”
“No worries, doll. We’ll handle it.”
“How?”
“How we do.”
“I know things about what you do . . . how it’s done.”
“Well, try to forget. Okay?”
“I don’t judge. I leave that to my father.”
She turned back to the window. Viper found it amusing how she plastered her face and hands to the glass. As if she were looking at a dream.
“You can go to the lake anytime you want, Viv. It’s just a short walk.”
“Viv? You like that name, huh?”
“You’ve got a chance to be whoever you wanna be here.”
“Vivian sounds nicer than Viv. But I’m tired of being nice.”
“Who do you wanna be, Viv?”
“I wanna be someone great.”
“All right then. We’ve got some work to do.”
I told her to trash those old gowns and I took her to Macy’s for new ones. Clive’s Club was elite and elegant. She needed to look the part. Viv opened up to all of it. High heels. Plunging necklines. Slits up the sides. Red rouge and red lips. When it was all finished, I had created what was probably my best gal to date.
Viv was a good hostess, but that wasn’t her selling point. She was gonna make money for us with song. After a month I convinced Clive we should get her on stage. We had a little help from a horn player who seemed to latch himself to the girl. I made it clear to him he needed to keep his distance. For one, he was Black. And as progressive as things was getting in the Windy City, it just weren’t fitting. Clive didn’t need no trouble and neither did I. They started rehearsals immediately early mornings and late nights after hours.
On stage, in three-inch stilettos Viv was unstoppable. Wasn’t a melody she couldn’t master after hearing it only one time.
“Where’d ya learn to sing like that?”
“What do you think?”
“Probably the only good thing to ever come outta church.”
“I don’t miss church. I never felt God there. When I sing, on that stage, it’s like I feel like God’s right next to me.”
“Maybe He is.”
“I don’t think He’d approve of the way I look.”
“God made you gorgeous. What’s wrong with that?”
Her face flushed underneath those rouge cheeks.
“Pa’d probably say that’s blasphemous.”
“You miss him?”
“I miss my ma. My brothers.”
“You should write her. Mothers worry.”
“Did yours?”
“Not mine, doll.”
“What was wrong with her?”
“Almost everything. You should write your mother.”
“Ma’ll see the postmark’s from Chicago.”
“I’ll drop it secretly to her next time I’m in Belnap.”
“You would do that for me?”
Of course. Anything.
But I didn’t say it.
I had done good getting Viv for the club. And Clive knew it. Once he saw how attractive she was . . . how she lit up a room . . . how his club went from crusty to waitlist desirable overnight. Well, Clive wiped out my debt entirely.
This was a true miracle seeing as my debt to Clive was to the tune of two hundred barrels of moonshine. I had misjudged the weather and a freak Lake Michigan storm took the whole shipment as I was transporting them from Spring Harbor to Chicago. I had been in deep to Clive, the club, and those who owned both . . . Capone’s network. And now I was free.
Thanks to Viv.
Once my debt was cleared, Clive owned Viv. And I no longer had a say in her fate. Normally, I don’t give a rat’s hairy ass. But I was protective of Paisley.
Clive was greedy and Clive saw humans as commodities. He would stretch her to the limits, squeezing every dollar out of her.
Julius Rockafeller
When I met Paisley that fall at the club, she was busting her way through a long list of nevers.
Never missed a Sunday in church.
Never wrote back to her family.
Never heard a lick of the jazz beat.
Never been in a mixed-race club.
Never stayed out all night.
Never been kissed by a Black person.
Never been to jail.
With cash from Clive, we bailed her and a host of servers and band members, out of what had been a routine club raid.
When we stepped out of the city jail onto the city streets just after 1:00 a.m., Paisley looped her arm into mine and looked up at me, brown eyes full of the city.
“Well, that wasn’t so bad after all. Are you hungry? I’m hungry.”
I took her to a café to drink coffee and eat buttered toast and jam. She talked the entire time, even entertaining a few other middle-of-the-night patrons. When the owner kicked us out at four, Paisley wanted more.
“What do we do now?”
“We sleep.”
“I’m not tired.”
“We can walk.”
“I could walk forever.”
So we walked. Miles. All the way north on the lake shore to where the path ended, and the rocks took over the shoreline.
I never had a chance to return home with my trumpet, so I sat down on the edge of the seawall and started to play. The sun rose to the tune of “Cuban Moon.” Paisley was feeling frisky and frivolous. She danced and made up her own lyrics while I riffed. They was pretty dang good lyrics. And confirmed what I had believed all along. She was so much more than just a singer.
She was an original.
I’m sure no one close to her had ever told her that before. You don’t tell that to someone and then expect them to stick around town. Her ma and pa must have been wise to that secret, too, because Paisley kept her dreams tidy and managed.
When I finally pulled my horn from my tired lips and set it aside, Paisley slumped down next to me, disappointed. She lay her head on my shoulder and was quiet. We sat on the seawall, her thigh touching mine; spray-off from the lake’s waves soaked our legs.
The club was enough for someone like me to aspire to. But Paisley . . . the world needed to know her. You don’t hide a gift like that under a bushel. So, I told her.
“We could start an act.”
“What do you mean?”
“You singin’. Me playin’.”
“And do what then?”
“Head to New York.”
“The city that never sleeps.”
“Would suit you then.”
“Just you and me?”
“Why not?”
“Singin’ and playin’. For whom?”
“Whoever wants to hire us.”
“Where would we live?”
“We’ll make friends.”
“How would we live?”
“What do you mean?”
“Would we marry?”
I shrugged. And she didn’t like that.
“Do you want to marry?”
Now she shrugged. And I didn’t take offense.
“I want to sing. I feel good when I’m singing. And I want to be with you. I feel good with I’m with you.”
“Then it’s decided.”
“When do we go?”
“Once we work up an act and we’re ready.”
“I see. What’ll that take?”
“What’s your arrangement?”
“I don’t understand.”
“With Mr. Clive. How long did he sign you on to work?”
“I never signed anything.”
“Did you sign something?”
I shook my head.
“I don’t mean literally signed a paper. A handshake agreement. That’s what we have.”
“I don’t have that. Is that bad?”
“How long did you agree to work for him?”
“It was never discussed.”
“Mr. Clive’ll be upset to see you go.”
“Should I be worried about it?”
“No, sweetie. You gotta live your life. Right?”
“Let’s get our plan together first. Then, I’ll talk to him.”
“We’ll talk to him.”
The sun was now sitting atop the lake-water horizon, its morning rays bounced off my horn at just the right angle to blind me. Wincing made me sleepy. My bones was creaky and I wanted my bed with Paisley next to me.
“Let’s go home.”
