The Chelsea Girls(81)

“You can trust me with this, Max.” Lavinia’s voice was a hoarse whisper. “Go wherever you need to go and keep yourself safe. I think I know what this is about, and I don’t blame you, if so. You were just a girl, I should have stepped in.”

I’d hugged her goodbye and left.

As the California sun poured through the commissary windows, turning the room gold, I squared my shoulders, lifted my chin, and looked Arthur in the eye. “I kept a diary. A detailed diary, about my involvement with the Party. Yours, too. If anything happens to me, instructions have been given to hand it over to the Feds.”

He studied me to see if I was telling the truth. “You think you’re so smart.”

“No. I think you’re desperate. You said yourself that the Party had been compromised.”

“We will rebuild. It may take some time, but we will.”

“I’m stronger than you are now. People will notice if I go missing, or turn up dead. My fans will want to know the truth and so will the police. If anything happens to my grandmother or anyone I know, I will make a commotion like you’ve never heard before. I will roar and you’ll go down.”

“What, you’ll publish your silly diary and expose all our secrets? You’ll get sent to the electric chair with the rest of us.”

“I’m willing to lose everything. Are you?”

I caught a flash of fear in his eyes. He flicked his fingers at me, an odd, persnickety gesture that didn’t suit him. “You’re a flea.”

That’s when I knew that I’d got to him, that I finally had the upper hand. Arthur had been trained to be economical, stealthy. With that superfluous flick, he revealed what we both knew: Arthur was no longer the controller, he was the controlled.

“Miss Mead, is everything all right?”

A beefy young security guard, whom I’d chatted up the first day on the lot, stood just behind Arthur, the buttons straining on his uniform.

Arthur turned and looked up. The cords of his neck stood out, white and thick. I wondered what it would be like to wrap my hands around his neck and strangle him as he’d done to me. To tighten my grip and feel his throat under my fingers.

I spoke clearly and loudly, from my chest. “This man needs to be escorted off the lot and banned from ever coming here again.”

Arthur held his palms out. “I’m leaving. I’m leaving.”

I wondered if he had any last words for me, but the guard grabbed him by the collar before he could say a thing.

In my dressing room, I sat still, calm and composed, as the makeup artist painted my face. I thought of Hazel and how I’d betrayed her in ways both big and small. A terrible choice had to be made, and I’d taken the coward’s way out. I’d make it up to her, though, make sure she was well taken care of. I’d reach out to her again when things settled back down.

When the world righted itself.





CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE


    Hazel


December 1950

Hazel practically fell out of the taxi onto the pavement outside the Chelsea Hotel, she was so tired. A bellman took her luggage from the trunk and helped her over the curb. She tipped him as much as she could spare, knowing that the bellmen at the Chelsea rarely had the opportunity to perform the more profitable hotel duties of escorting guests and their belongings up to a room—one of the drawbacks of employment at what was really an artists’ commune.

The Christmas tree in the lobby had been commandeered by Winnifred and Wanda, Hazel guessed, glistening with baubles and tinsel that overwhelmed the poor pine. An enormous golden angel at the very top listed precariously to one side, ready to be toppled at any moment by a wayward gust of wind from the open door.

At least she was home, if only for a two-week break for the holidays. Hazel was back to understudying—the only job she’d been offered since the debacle, and only because the producer had been eager to see her grovel for the part—this time in a tour of an Ibsen play across the sadder towns of America in an effort to bring the classics to the masses. The masses didn’t care much for Ibsen, and the stage manager had whispered to Hazel that the second leg of the tour was up in the air as the big bus hurtled through New Jersey.

It was a paycheck, one that she could really use right now.

The thought of money stopped her from going right up to her room. She backtracked and knocked on Mr. Bard’s office door.

“There you are! Welcome home!”

His effusive greeting and hug almost made her weep. She attributed her silly emotions to the fatigue of travel, and dug into her purse for an envelope.

“Mr. Bard, I have rent money for you for the next couple of months. Thank you for being so patient with me.”

He shook his head. “No, my dear girl. You are a gift to our city, to our community, and I will accept half of it only.” His generosity moved her even further, and he chuckled and handed her a handkerchief. “No need to cry.”

“It’s been a long couple of months, and it’s so nice to be back. Thank you. I’ll be out again on tour in a couple of weeks, so there will be more money coming in.” Hopefully.

He plucked the envelope from her hand, gathered up half of the bills, and returned the rest to her. “Buy yourself something pretty for Christmas, all right?”

She turned to go but he called after her. “Wait a moment, I have some mail for you. Special delivery, one of them.”