The Chelsea Girls(54)
“Will we hear about it in the news one of these days? Or is this the kind of thing that’s going to stay underground, all conspiracy theory and conjecture?”
“Soon. You’ll hear something soon.”
She leaned in. “Ooo. So scary.”
He touched her chin with his index finger, lightly, like he was casting a spell. “Don’t make fun.”
The feather-like stroke rippled through her. He pulled back, placing both hands in his lap. Unnerved, she rearranged her features into a polite smile as the sound of firecrackers reverberated over the city.
“When I first came to the hotel, I was so worried about what my mother thought,” she finally said. “We’d had a big fight, and I moved out for what I thought was a few days but turned out to be permanent. I don’t regret it one bit. It was only the second time I went against her wishes—the first being the USO tour—and I’m glad I did. Maybe by working on the show you’re declaring your own independence.”
“I’m going to step out from under my father’s shadow, one way or another.” Charlie’s voice was soft but firm. “What the hell, maybe if I get rejected by the FBI, I’ll invest in your next production.”
“Now you want to become a producer?” She was going to tease him, but the look on his face was so sweet, so hopeful, that she pulled herself up short. “I think that would be grand.”
“You do?” He glanced out the window, at his drink, anywhere but at her.
She finally took his chin in her hand and made him focus. “Yes.”
They stared again, but this time neither broke away. He leaned in and kissed her, pulled back and whispered, “Is this okay?”
She moved into him. “Yes.”
For once, she wanted to be the bad girl, like Maxine. To let herself go and stop overthinking everything. Like the fact that Charlie was the worst possible choice as a lover, for many reasons. To just stop thinking.
They stayed on the couch for what seemed like hours, Charlie taking his time exploring her body and very slowly peeling off her dress, then her undergarments, until she was bare. The small part of her that was aghast at the exposure was quickly overwhelmed by her other senses. She became consumed by his inhale of breath, the touch of his fingers on her breast, the sting of Scotch on their tongues.
All thoughts of the play evaporated from her mind, just like the rainwater steaming off the black pavement of Twenty-Third Street.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Maxine
July 6, 1950
We’re in tech now, which means long, painful days for us actors. We stand onstage, say a few lines, then Hazel stops us while the lighting designer fiddles about and the set designer does the same. A few more lines, more fiddling. Of course, it’s not fiddling. Canby had hired master lighting and set designers who would transform the naked stage into a believably decrepit hotel in a war-torn country. But for the actors, it’s something to endure. We’re dying to run through the show with lights, sets, and costumes, but tech week ground all that to a necessary halt.
Floyd was missed, especially when we showed up for the costume parade at a cavernous warehouse in the West Thirties, where members of the cast dress in full wardrobe, for inspection by the creative team. Floyd’s assistant had taken charge, but her boss’s absence was palpable.
I worried about Floyd, about where he was hiding out, what was going on behind the scenes that none of us were privy to. He’d been such a sweetheart in Naples and I hated the thought that he was being bullied again, like he’d been bullied there. During the war, Hazel and I had been able to offer him a modicum of protection, but this time he’d pulled away, out of our orbit of safety.
I wanted to weep at the thought of Floyd lost and alone, fearing a knock on the door, with absolutely no one to turn to. I wanted to break things and inflict pain, but our enemies were unseen, amorphous. Evil.
As I walked into the space, the actors, still wearing street clothes, were huddled in one corner, looking at something that Brandy held in her hand, and every eye turned to me as I entered. Brandy, always the bearer of bad news, thrust an issue of Counterattack right in my face.
* * *
“You really should take a look.” Brandy spoke louder than she needed to.
“Already seen it, this ain’t new, dearie,” I said. “Same folks who published the Red Channels rag, I hear.”
“But you’ve been named.”
I glanced down. It was another list of people deemed as threats to America. While many of the others had at least five lines of “offenses,” mine only had one: that lousy rally that I went to with Hazel’s brother eons ago.
Inside, I admit I was quaking, just a little. This was bad. I handed it back to her. “I’ve been called a lot of names in my time, and commie won’t be the last, I’m sure.”
Hazel clapped her hands and called for attention. From the rough edge in her voice, she’d already heard the news. “We’re late. Everyone get dressed and let’s get this show on the road.”
Normally, a dress parade is an exciting event. The costumes make the show feel real. While we’d had a number of fittings over the course of the rehearsal period, this is when you see the big picture, the color palette, what visual delights the audience is in for. It also makes you look at your fellow actors in a new way, more as the character than as the person you got to know outside of rehearsal. Costumes are a blast. Usually.