SHE WAS ONLY SUPPOSED TO BE MODELING FOR THE PHOTOGRAPHER....
"You swear to that, baby? You ain't never gone all the way with any guy? You swear?"
I got kinda red. Nobody'd ever talked to me the way he was doing. "I never did. I swear it," I told him.
"How do you like that? A gorgeous number like you!" He pulled out his wallet and waved some bills at me. "It's worth fifty bucks to me," he whispered, all overheated.
I'd never seen that much money all at one time in my life! Sixty-five bucks, counting in my modeling fee! I looked at the greasy, fat old man and I was scared to death. But anyway, I managed to smile and follow him into the back room.
CHAPTER ONE
"Hi ya, Sexy!" A short, chunky guy pushed himself in my way when I started up the steps to our flat.
"Beat it, bum," I said, the way the actresses did on TV shows sometimes, and ran on up the stoop and inside the hall, fast so he'd know he was wasting his time.
I guess it did look funny for me to be coming home at six in the morning. I looked at myself in the glass of the door while I was fighting with the key-the landlord was always promising to put on a new lock. My red slim jims were awful tight, and the red-and-white-striped tee shirt fit the way it was supposed to two years ago. The fellas always said I was a dead-ringer for Brigitte Bardot. A couple days ago I locked myself in the bathroom and measured to see if I was anywhere near as good as her. I guess 38-23-35 is pretty good. I always try to fix my hair like B.B.'s and walk sexy, the way she does. I'll bet I got a hundred pictures of her I cut out of movie magazines. I read somewhere she was only fifteen when she started making movies.
"Whatcha doin' up at this hour, Gorgeous?" Mr. Rafferty, who lives in the flat across from us, pulled open the door. He has three kids of his own, but he wasn't looking at me like no father.
"I took Mom to the hospital," I said, and shoved past. He made sure I had to brush against him and his pot belly.
"Hope it's a boy this time," he yelled while I chased on up the stairs.
This was a swell way to start off my birthday, taking Mom to the Maternity Ward of City Hospital. I didn't hang around. It'd be hours before anything happened, Mom told me, and after five kids she oughta know. So I'd have a new sister or brother for a birthday present. That's all I'd be getting. I didn't know anybody else that had a birthday without getting presents. I was wishing now I hadn't made up all that stuff for the kids at school. Telling 'em I was getting a transistor radio from "my father who was out in California." I wouldn'ta done it if it wasn't for that sneaky Rose Larson, the way she said she hoped Mom would have a boy this time, so we'd have a man in the family. I sure poured it on, saying "Pop" worked for a movie company out there, and when I got through school I was going to live with him. Everybody knew I was lying. Now I'd have to show up at school with no transistor radio, and I could just see 'em. Half the girls in my class had transistors. They had lots of things. Why did it always have to be like this? Mom coulda bought me a pair of earrings or a lipstick or something! All she had to do was leave off a few cans of beer.
Mom named us all after movie stars. She was always nuts about Lana Turner, so I was Lana. The next one was Rita-she was nine now-then came Liz, who was seven, and Debbie, who was almost five. Baby Joanie was three. Joanie was my pet. People were always saying she was a living doll. Sometimes I pretended I was her mother. I never got sore at Joanie, even when she was a pest. No two of us had the same father. I heard Mom admit that to Grandma once when they were fighting. I didn't even know my Pop's name or what he looked like. Grandma was blind and never knew about the newest baby until she heard it crying in the house. When Mom went off to the hospital, Grandma always figured she was off on one of her "trips".
Mom was only thirty-three but everybody thought she was at least forty. We'd been on Welfare ever since I can remember. Mom figured it was easier to have a baby and Welfare than go out to work steady. Every time the baby got big enough for a day nursery and the Welfare people started talking about jobs, Mom got pregnant again. She was awful lazy. She liked to loaf around the house and talk about how pretty she used to be and how it was a shame she hadn't been picked up by the movies or maybe married a millionaire. When I was eight, she caught me ironing a dress because I was ashamed of how the kids snickered at my clothes, all wrinkled like they were most of the time. After that I did all the family ironing, or it didn't get done. I was teaching Rita now. She was a good kid. Scrawny and with a sort of scared look in her eyes.
I opened the door soft as I could so I wouldn't wake anybody, and then sat myself down in a kitchen chair. Today I was fifteen! There ought to be something special about birthdays, like in the movies and TV. Mom brought home a TV set last year. She said it was a present from an admirer. The Welfare didn't want her to keep it at first, then they said okay.
I kept thinking about having to go to school today and explain why I didn't have a radio. They'd look at each other and start snickering. They'd know I was lying all the time. Then I got this terrific idea. I wouldn't go to school today. Mom wasn't home; who'd know the difference? After I took Joanie over to the day nursery and got the others off to school, I'd go somewhere, like to the Music Hall. I had almost two bucks from babysitting. It was the first time I baby-sat and they wouldn't be asking me back, not the way the old witch next door complained about us making too much noise with the phonograph. The baby didn't wake up once. Carmen said she complained because she couldn't stand knowing we had two fellas in there alone with us. Carmen was sharp. She worked in some factory downtown and if she didn't bring home half her salary, her old man used to wallop the hell out of her. But she kept the rest of the money for herself. It'd be swell to have money like Carmen to buy clothes and movie magazines and lipsticks and eye liners.
I got up and walked over to the mirror hanging over the sink. Nobody'd think I was less than seventeen. Mom was disappointed in me for not being a blonde-she kept pestering me to bleach my hair like Lana Turner's. But the fellas I saw didn't care if I wasn't blonde, I could tell. Then I thought about tonight. This was almost like a birthday present. I had a date with a new guy. I never went out with anybody this old. Chuck was eighteen. He'd just moved into the fifth floor front across the street about a month ago. Last week I was coming out of the candy store and we almost knocked each other down. He grabbed hold to keep me from falling over a baby carriage somebody'd parked there. Chuck was tall and dark and awful cute. He made a couple fresh remarks about how the girls always flipped for him and I got sore for a minute. I hate fellas who're stuck on themselves. But I kept seeing him around and he looked cuter and cuter. He dressed sharp, too, and it seemed like he always had money for movies and sodas and things. All the girls were throwing themselves at him, except me. Maybe that's why he asked me to go out with him. I said okay right away, though I was worried about Mom. She didn't go for guys like Chuck-she said they were too big for their own britches. But Mom was in the hospital so she couldn't start up about it being a school night and she didn't want me running around the streets.
"Lana?" Grandma's voice came from her cot in the living room. Mom and I slept on the studio couch there, and the four kids had the bedroom. I was worrying about where we'd put the new baby. When they're so little and helpless, somebody has to worry.
"Yeah?" I called back, knowing what she was after. "It's early for breakfast but you want some coffee?"
"All right, dear, that's a nice girl," she said, satisfied.
I always wondered what Grandma thought about Mom and the kids. Maybe Grandma gave up a long time ago, when Mom ran way with that sailor when she was fifteen.
Every time I thought about tonight, I got a crazy feeling all the way down. I'd been dating since I was thirteen, but nobody like Chuck. Mom didn't care if it was somebody fifteen or sixteen, but she raised the roof if I went with somebody older. That was funny, coming from her. Didn't she know what the neighbors said about her? They didn't care how loud they talked, either. I hated it when they'd snicker and say I was more the kids' mother than Mom was. I wanted to be me-fifteen years old and just like other girls.
Carmen was the closest thing to a girl friend I ever had, but you couldn't trust her. She was seventeen and real sophisticated. I was wishing now I hadn't fixed it for Carmen and Rocky, her steady guy, to go with Chuck and me tonight. She'd been watching Chuck with that gleam she gets when she likes a guy.
Now I started to worry about what to wear. I'd bet anything Carmen would show up in something wild. All I ever wore was what somebody handed down. I was dying to go into stores and buy things nobody ever wore. Today I'd look in all the store windows and pretend I was trying to make up my mind what to buy. I'd pick out a transistor radio and a phonograph and a flock of record albums. I was nuts about music. Not just rock-and-roll-show tunes, too. Carmen was always buying records.
"Coffee's ready, Gran," I said, then went on into the bedroom to wake the kids. I was in a hurry now to rush downtown and window-shop, deciding what I'd buy for my birthday if I had ten bucks for myself. Then I'd buy a ticket to the Music Hall. I was taking myself out on my birthday.
My feet were beginning to hurt from walking on the hot pavement and I wished I'd put my hair into a pony tail instead of letting it hang down like B.B.'s. Once when Mom was high from beer, she called me her black-haired sexpot.
"I wouldn't let you loose on Forty-second Street," she'd laughed shaking her head. "Some jerk'd be waving a five dollar bill under your nose before you walked half a block."
Mom didn't think about money when she went with guys-that was why we were on Welfare. Mom and Grandma kept saying I'd finish high school if it killed all of us. I didn't know what was so wonderful about having a high school diploma. I didn't like school, but there wasn't anything else to do.
I pushed my hair back from my neck and pulled at my blouse at the back where it stuck to me from the heat. It was too early to go to the Music Hall; the doors weren't even open yet. Maybe I ought to go in somewhere for a coke. I opened my purse to make sure what I had; plenty for a coke and the Music Hall and a frank and orange drink when I came out of the Music Hall. I walked along being choosey about where I'd go in, hoping for a place that was air conditioned. I felt nervous, too, about somebody asking why I wasn't in school.
It wasn't just worrying about truant officers and the heat that was making me nervous. It was seeing all those beautiful dresses in the windows, and the crazy shoes. I was nuts about shoes. I got sick watching the girls inside the stores, buying things like it was nothing.
I stopped to peek inside a luncheonette. It looked cool and nobody was inside. I walked in and sat on a stool near the front. The waitress came over, smiling and looking me up and down but not in a way that made me sore, more like she was paying me a compliment. "What'll it be, honey?"
"Coke," I said.
"Hot, ain't it?" She reached for a glass to fix my coke. "Not bad in here."
"Wish I was out at the beach. Boy, would I like to be stretched on that sand." She closed her eyes and shivered. "My boy friend's outta town but when he gets back I'm takin' myself a week off." She kept staring at me till I was starting to feel funny. "Say, honey, would you be interested in makin' some fast dough? Now don't get me wrong," she said quick. "I don't mean the way you might be thinkin'. This is posin' for a photographer, in bikinis. He's lookin' for a real young girl who's stacked." She looked at me again in that admiring way. "He told me to find him a nice Latin type. That's you, honey."
I thought about going out tonight with Chuck and how I was wild to buy a new dress for once. Picked out by me, Lana.
"It ain't like you'd be doin' anything wrong," she said. "It's modelin', only he wants one particular type."
"How much would he pay me? And how long will it take?" I still wanted to go to the Music Hall.
"He'll pay ten bucks and he'll be through in an hour." She was already hunting around for a piece of paper to write the address on.
Ten bucks! I could buy that skirt and blouse I saw over on Broadway and some earrings in the five and dime. That outfit'd knock Chuck's eyes right out of his head, the way the blouse was cut down front and off the shoulders, and I'd buy it one size too small so it'd fit like it was pasted on!
I had to walk all the way over to Ninth Avenue, then climb up three flights of steep, dirty stairs till I reached the room number she'd given me. There was nothing on the door about it's being a photographer's studio. I stood there for a minute, wondering if I ought to run right down those stairs and forget all about that ten bucks. I'd heard about what happens to girls who walk into strange places like this, about white slavery and rape and even murder. I didn't want to end up on a slab in the morgue, the way you see in the movies. I was about to start back down the stairs when the door swung open.
"Looking for somebody, Beautiful?" A fella stood there, smiling, and I was ashamed at being scared.
"I think I got the wrong place. I'm looking for a photographer."
"Right here, girlie!" he pointed inside. "Don't let the 'Sign-painter' bit on the door fool you. We do photographs, too, for a selected clientele."
He put an arm about me the way a teacher or a social worker would-not like Chuck or other-guys I knew-and led me inside. He kept on talking all the time, about how Lily over at the luncheonette was his "talent scout", always sending him the pick of the crop. How his models usually went on to work in night clubs and on TV, and one girl even went out to Hollywood. He handed me a bathing suit and told me to go behind the screen and put it on.
I slid out of my hot sticky clothes and into the bikini. I'd never had on so little before. It was like standing in the bathtub with two washcloths.
"Okay?" he called out.
"I'm ready." I walked out, wondering if I wasn't the wrong type for bikinis. I was popping out all over!
He smiled, rubbed his hands together like he was pleased and pinched me on the cheek. "I'll be right back. Going for the photographer."
I stared at him. "I thought you took the pictures."
"No, I just handle the preliminaries." He smiled again and went off whistling.
I noticed a mirror hanging over the washbasin, so I went over and stood up on tiptoe, trying to see as much as I could of me. I was still looking in the mirror, wondering what Mom would say about me making ten bucks so easy when somebody's eyes met mine. I turned around fast.
"So you're my little model." He stood there, bouncing up and down on the soles of his feet. He was old and fat and greasy.
"The girl said you paid ten dollars," I reminded him, wanting him to know I wasn't scared.
"That's right. And today's only the first job. We'll have lots more if you handle this okay."
Lots more? All that dough! I could buy closetsful of clothes and all the make-up I ever dreamed about and stacks of records! So the guy took pictures of me with practically nothing on, what was so terrible? Didn't girls go to the beach like this all the time? Even movie stars?
"All right, baby, let's go to work." He took out a camera and set it up, then told me to stand over by the stool in the center of the room.
I was beginning to wonder if maybe he was disappointed in me, after all, the way he kept coming over to move the bra around and fix the pants. He kept pushing the bra together till it was just a ribbon across the front and then he started twisting the pants. I got that funny feeling again, like maybe I'd stepped into something I shouldn't have.
"Nervous?" He stopped and stood there smiling.
"Un-unh," I said quick. I didn't want him thinking I was a dumb kid.
"That's the right attitude, baby."
Then he started fooling around some more, rubbing his hands all over me, places he had no business going. The way he stunk of garlic nearly knocked me out. This wasn't modeling like I'd heard about, even if I was wearing a bikini.
"The girl in the luncheonette said I'd just have to pose." I looked him right in the eye.
"That's right, baby. That's what the camera's set up for." He fixed the bra again, only this time his hands stayed there. "With a pair like you got there, it's a shame not to photograph the whole thing. Like a work of art. You heard about the Venus de Milo, ain'tcha?"
"She didn't have no arms. I have," I reminded him. I'd read how a girl said that in one of Mom's confession magazines.
"Baby, I'm thinking of the art." But he put his hands down. "For an extra five bucks, no bra?" He reached for his wallet, laid the ten dollar bill on the table by the window and put a five next to it. With five bucks I could buy shoes tool "Well?" he asked, and I nodded "yes".
He took his time getting the bra unhooked and the way he was leaning against me, the hair on his chest, where it stuck out above his shirt, scratched me. He coulda got the bra off easy from the back. I felt all crazy inside, standing there in nothing but those tiny pants and him leaning over me this way. But then I thought about the new skirt and blouse and shoes. He moved back to the camera now and took some shots, making me keep changing positions: sitting on the stool with my legs crossed all kinds of ways, then bending over the stool. He stopped for a minute to light a cigarette. I hoped he wouldn't take too much longer.
"Take a rest, kid," he said, reading my mind. "Then well go back for a few more quickies."
"Okay." I walked over to the chair near the window, thinking maybe I'd get a breeze there. I was wondering if I ought to put on my clothes, but that seemed silly for only a few minutes. I wished I had the money and was out of here.
"I'll bet you got a string of guys a mile long trailin' you," he said, keeping his eyes on where my bra used to be. He kept running his tongue across his lips all the time he was talking. "I'll bet they're nuts about a gorgeous babe like you."
"I go out with some guys," I admitted, pretending it didn't mean nothing to have fellas nuts about me. He must think I was eighteen, at least.
"I'll bet they'd love to put their eyes on you right now, huh baby?" He laughed like it was a big joke between the two of us.
"They won't," I told him, thinking how all I knew were school kids, except Chuck. They wouldn't be paying me fifteen bucks to sit in front of a camera like this.
"None of 'em ever did? I mean, you never did it with anybody?"
"The fellas I know just go to school. Least, they do when the truant officer catches up with 'em," I said honestly, figuring there wasn't no use pretending I knew things I didn't.
He was getting all excited now. "You swear to that, baby? You ain't never did it with any guy? I mean, all the way? You swear?"
I got kinda red. Nobody'd ever talked to me the way he was doing. But he didn't act like he thought it was wrong or anything.
"I never did. I swear it." I came out with it louder than I meant to because I was remembering when the fellas had wanted to and I said "no" because I was scared of Mom and scared of getting caught like she always was. Of course, I'd been going with fellas since I was thirteen and knew all about kissing and how you always had to fight off hands.
"How do you like that? A gorgeous number like you!" He walked over to me, shaking his head like he couldn't believe it. "And hot as hell, I'll bet!" His eyes were burning holes into me, and then he was reaching out, cupping his big hairy hands like he thought he could fit me into them.
"I don't think you oughta do that," I said when his hands caught hold of me like that.
"Baby, there's a nice quiet little room back of here. You cross through that door with me and you'll come out fifty bucks richer!" He slid his arms around me and pulled me tight. We were just about the same size. He kept pushing into me and I didn't have to wonder anymore about how much he wanted me to go into that room with him. "Baby, fifty bucks," he whispered, all overheated. "I'll lay it right here on the table." He moved away, reached for his wallet and pulled out two twenties and a ten.
I'd never seen so much money at once in my life. He was offering it to me! I could buy a load of make-up and a boxful of jewelry. And that transistor radio! I could go to school tomorrow with the birthday present from "my Pop in California"!
"I don't think I ought to," I said, scared now but dying for all that dough. "I mean, I don't know nothing."
"You don't have to worry with me, baby. You're safe as if nothing even happened." His breath was coming in quick jerky gasps and he was hoarse. "Baby, don't keep me waitin'."
"First the fifty. I gotta have that," I insisted.
He put it into my hands. "Now you go on inside and I'll be right with you." He pushed me toward the door and reached into a drawer in the table nearby.
I opened the door and walked into the little room. It was small, with nothing in it but a cot with a dirty, wrinkled sheet, and an ashtray on the floor. The window was covered with an old blanket nailed all around. I felt silly standing there in nothing but the bikini pants but I didn't have time to think about it. The door opened and he hurried inside and closed it behind him. He'd taken off his clothes. I'd never seen a guy with all his clothes off before. He was ugly, I thought, feeling sick. I had to keep reminding myself about the money. Maybe I'd buy something nice for the kids, too, I decided, pretending he wasn't pulling off my pants like he'd drop dead if he didn't get 'em off quick enough. All kinds of nutty things kept popping into my head, like was it going to hurt because this wasn't playing-this was for real. He kept talking all the time and I was trying to make myself realize this was me doing these things. Me, Lana Hendricks. But then I remembered the sixty-five bucks in my purse lying right there on the floor, so close I could put my hand down and reach it.
"Like it, baby?" He stopped and I thought it was over.
"Yes," I lied, thinking there was nothing to it, not the way I'd figured it be at all.
"Go on, tell me how much you like it. Tell me, baby!"
He was trying again and getting sore because nothing happened. Then he got up from the cot and stood looking down at me, sort of disgusted. "For what I took for a hot baby, you sure don't show much appreciation!"
He walked out, then threw my clothes inside to me. He was acting like I'd cheated him or something. Maybe if he was some movie star, or even Chuck, I might have liked it more. I guess he could tell I didn't like it. Right now, all I wanted was to put on my clothes and get out in the fresh air. And go shopping. I wanted to buy, buy, buy!
CHAPTER TWO
I went straight to the store on Broadway where I'd seen the skirt and blouse and bought 'em, then a red petticoat to wear under them. When the salesgirl saw my wad of bills, she tried to sell me more things, but I wasn't forgetting my radio. I grabbed up my packages and went out looking for a store that sold transistors. I didn't care about the Music Hall anymore.
I bought the radio, then a pair of shoes. I stopped to see the make-up in a drugstore window, and I had to have that eye-liner and wild lipstick I spotted. When I finished paying for 'em, I was shocked. All I had left was a five and two ones and a pocketful of change. Money sure went fast!
I looked at the clock, almost one now. Maybe Mom had had the baby by this time. I went into a phone booth to call the hospital.
It was a boy. Maybe everything was changing for us. A boy and all this dough on the same day. I made up my mind to buy something for the new baby. And I'd buy Joanie a carriage for her doll. The woman down the street gave her an old one that was always falling apart. This time Joanie was gonna have a new carriage and a new doll. I looked at my money again. I'd better shop in the five and dime. I'd have to save enough for a box of hard candy for Rita and Liz and Debbie. It wouldn't be fair not to get something for them.
I nearly died trying to get home with all those packages. I had to make it before the kids came home from school, so I could hide my clothes and the transistor. The make-up was easy; I'd shove it into my school bag. I'd say I found a five dollar bill in the street, that's how I bought the other things. I was almost at the door when I remembered Grandma, I hadn't got anything for her. But I didn't even know what Grandma wanted. She never complained or said she wanted anything, just sat in her chair and sighed every once in a while. Then I remembered. She liked, flowers, to smell and feel every once in a while. A long time ago we had a pot of geraniums. She'd loved it. I was ready to fall on my face I was so tired, but I went after a pot of geraniums for Grandma. Walking into the house, I thought I was Santa Claus.
"Lana?" Grandma's voice was sharp.
"Yeah."
"Early for you to be comin' home from school, ain't it?"
"I left early," I lied. "I said I had a bad headache."
"Make us some ice tea, Lana. Makes you feel nice and cool."
"Okay." I picked up the pot of geraniums and took it to her. "I brought you a surprise. Feel." I put it into her hands.
"Lana, honey!" She sounded so surprised. "That's about the nicest thing I can remember in a long, long time!" She was touching the flowers like they were something holy, then she stopped. "Lana, where'd you get the money?"
"I found it," I said fast. "Five dollars. Lying right there in the gutter. No name or anything so I couldn't tell who it belonged to. It was all right to keep it, wasn't it?"
Grandma was frowning. "I guess so, if you found it that way." But there was something worried in her voice.
"I bought candy for the kids and a doll and carriage for Joanie. And clothes for the new baby." I don't know why I came out with it like that. "Mom went to the hospital this morning. It's a boy."
She didn't say a word, then after a while she smiled a little. "A boy, is it? That's a change for us."
"I bought him a nightgown and a sweater to wear home from the hospital." My little brother wouldn't come home in somebody else's old things. He'd be starting off new.
I went to fix the ice tea and to see if there was any milk left for the kids. I always hid a glass for Joanie when there wasn't enough to go around. I was all excited now, dying to see her eyes when I showed her her present. And tonight I was going out on a date with Chuck in my new outfit. Tomorrow I'd take my transistor to school and the kids' eyes would pop. This was about the best birthday I could ever remember.
I waited till the kids, except Rita, were in bed. Rita was in the flat across the way, playing with Bunny Rafferty. I wanted to dress and get out before she saw my clothes and opened her yap so Grandma could hear. I dressed in the bathroom, wishing we had one of those long door-mirrors so I could see myself. I got a look at the blouse by pushing up on my toes. It fitted like I remembered, as if it was glued on. The skirt was short, the way Carmen wore hers. Short enough so the whole knee cap showed. Carmen said the back of the knees always gets the guys hot. My legs were terrific; even Mom admitted that. I pulled out the picture of Brigitte Bardot I kept hid under the bathtub, and tried to do my eyebrows like hers and to get that sexy puff to my hair. I was all perspired already, working with the eyebrow pencil and my new eye-liner, but it was worth it. The pale pink lipstick was sensational with the eye gook and my white powder. I looked old as Carmen.
I went into the bedroom to make sure they were okay in there, then told Grandma I was going to meet Carmen. We'd fixed it that way before I knew Mom would be in the hospital. Carmen told her folks she was going to the movies with me and I said I was going over to Carmen's. Mom wouldn't bother phoning up to see if I was over there and Carmen's old man was satisfied if she was out with me. He raised the roof if she went out with Rocky in the middle of the week.
It wasn't seven o'clock yet but Mrs. Rafferty was already sitting on the stoop, talking to old lady Rocco while she watered her window boxes. They shut up a minute to inspect me like I was on exhibit in a cage. I walked fast but even so I could hear 'em talking.
"The mother had her baby today," Mrs. Rafferty was saying. I figured Rita had spilled it by now. "A boy, for a change."
"Wouldn't you think she'd be ashamed of herself?" Mrs. Rocco's voice was loud enough to win a hog-calling contest. "What do you suppose she tells the other ones each time? Plain enough there ain't no husband around."
"She'll keep on getting caught until the oldest one's eighteen and the Welfare can put her to work-if that Lana stays around till she's eighteen. Ain't it a disgrace the way she walks around like a grown-up slut?"
"What do you expect?" I slowed down to listen to Mrs. Rafferty. I was sore but I wanted to hear. "It's in the blood. If she's smart, she'll find some sucker to marry her quick and get out of here before she's stuck with that whole family around her neck."
This wasn't the first time I heard stuff like that, but I never got used to it. It was all right for Mrs. Rafferty's husband to try to put his hands all over me every time he got half a chance, and the guys all knew Angelina Rocco would do anything once they got her up on the roof, but everything was okay because they belonged to respectable people with marriage licenses. But I wouldn't think about that stuff now. I was on my way to a date with Chuck.
I half-ran that last block to the corner opposite the movies where we were all supposed to meet. I didn't want to be early, so he could see I was anxious, but I didn't want to keep him waiting too long. Chuck was the cutest guy I'd ever had a date with. Sort of like Tab Hunter. In a way, this was my first real date. The others didn't count. They made a lot of noise and talked tough but they were only kids.
"Wow!" Chuck was leaning against a store window as I turned the corner. "I repeat, wow!" He gave me that low wolf-call with his eyes half-closed, and I stopped being scared. I must look pretty terrific because Chuck went out with sharp chicks.
"Hi." I smiled, satisfied with myself. "And you can wish me happy birthday."
"Happy birthday, baby! Sixteen? Seventeen?"
"Eighteen," I lied, feeling wonderful.
"That calls for a kiss. What's a birthday without a kiss?" He gave me one of those fast, breezy kisses that don't mean anything, but then he reached for me, right there in the street. "Oh, baby, what you do to me," he whispered, and held me so tight his belt buckle dug right into my flesh.
"Hey, Lana," Carmen yelled, coming toward us. Then she saw my new duds and stopped dead. After a minute her eyes stopped popping and she moved over to Chuck. I could see she liked him an awful lot for a girl who was going steady.
"Where's Rocky?" I asked, watching the way Carmen kept boring her eyes into Chuck.
"That jerk can't tell time." She tapped one heel impatiently. "What's with your mother?"
"She had a boy," I said, wondering why she was all of a sudden interested in my mother.
"So she finally made it. Maybe now she'll call it quits." There was something nasty about the way she said it, and I caught on to what she was trying to pull.
"First boy?" Chuck asked, letting his hand wander about my waist again.
"Yeah," Carmen said loudly. "All the others been girls. Gotta give her credit for trying."
"Bet your old man's excited," Chuck said, looking around for Rocky now. We wanted to be in for the start of the picture.
"That's a laugh," Carmen cackled, and if I had had a knife, I'd have shoved it right into her belly. I knew now she'd make it her business to tell Chuck all about Mom.
"Come on, let's go in before the first picture starts." I leaned against Chuck to make Carmen sore. She couldn't keep her eyes off him.
"Without Rocky? You nuts?"
"Here he comes," Chuck spotted him. "Let's get moving so we find good seats."
"Hi ya, doll!" Rocky pounded Carmen on the can, then put his arm across her shoulder. "Whatcha standin' here like dopes? Let's go put a reserved sign on that last row in the balcony."
We hurried over to the movie house, and then Carmen and I waited while the fellas bought candy and cigarettes. We all climbed up to the balcony, laughing and joking until an usher told us to shut up. The whole back row was empty. We climbed all the way over into the corner seats. The others smoked a cigarette while I dug into a candy bar. I had tried smoking when I was fourteen but I didn't like it. I was glad we got in nice and early like this. We had almost the whole balcony to ourselves.
"The first picture's a western," I said disgustedly while we watched the end of the newsreel. "I hate westerns."
"Who cares? We gotta better picture back here." Chuck slid one hand across my back, then it was reaching around towards the front. He pinched me and I yelled and we all busted out laughing.
Somebody up front muttered, "Shut up", and we did because we didn't want no ushers chasing over to us. Not the way Rocky and Carmen were already tangled up like that, with Rocky's leg swung clear across Carmen while he kissed her. I got scared for a minute. Was he going to try to do it right here? Rocky was making excited little noises and I could see Carmen's hands digging into his shoulders with those long red fingernails she was so proud of.
"Hey, baby, forget about the scenery." Chuck leaned over to kiss me but it wasn't like any other time I'd been kissed. He was making me open my mouth so he could go exploring, and soon I caught on to what he was trying to teach me. My side was hurting from leaning against the arm of the seat the way I was, but I didn't care. Then he was playing with my leg, nice and easy so he was all the way up my thigh before I knew it. I reached to drag his hand down.
"What's the matter, honey?" he whispered. "Don't you want a little lovin'?"
"We can't," I said, remembering this morning and turning hot all over.
"Why not, baby?" His hand was under my skirt again and I couldn't stop him. This morning I woulda hit that fat, ugly old man over the head if it wasn't for the money, but this was different.
"Somebody'll see us," I said, hunting for an excuse.
"We don't have to stay here. I gotta friend with a car.' He keeps it parked in a spot nobody goes." He kept rubbing my back with one hand and loving me under my skirt with the other. I couldn't think clear, the way he was behaving. "Come on, Lana baby, let's move outta here."
"I can't," I insisted. "My mom would kill me."
"Who's gonna tell her?" The way he was sprawling over me, my back was ready to break. "Come on, we can have ourselves a real ball."
"What about Carmen and Rocky? Won't they be awful sore if we walk out?" I was dying to go with him, yet something kept telling me "no".
"They ain't interested in us!" He laughed in my ear, but his hand wasn't stopping. I was scared now. If I didn't get him off me fast, I wouldn't be caring what happened, even right here in the movie. "Baby, let's quit the stalling. That back seat's just waitin' for us. Whatcha waitin' for, anyhow, a marriage license?"
All of a sudden I remembered Mrs. Rafferty and Mrs. Rocco. If Lana was smart, she's catch herself a poor sucker and get him to marry her quick. Only, what poor sucker was going to marry Lana Hendricks? It was a joke, even to Chuck.
I used both my hands to shove him back into his own seat. "I can't! Go find yourself somebody else!" I was on my feet and pushing past the seats before he knew what hit him.
Why should I sit here in a stinking movie and let Chuck paw all over me and then crawl into the back seat of that car just for kicks? This morning a guy paid me sixty-five dollars to do it with him. That must mean I'm something special. From now on I wasn't going to be broke and wearing somebody else's tired-out clothes. I was going to make money. I'd have lots of fancy clothes and live in a big apartment and some day I might even be a movie star, like Brigitte Bardot.
CHAPTER THREE
I was almost at the door when I decided to go back and put on my new shoes. I wouldn't show up at school just with my new transistor, I'd wear those wacky sandals, too. I read in a magazine that B.B. had a hundred pairs of shoes and a hundred sweaters.
"Hey, Lana, you got new shoes!" Rita said in that screechy voice of hers.
I nearly dropped dead. I thought she was halfway to school by now. "You're supposed to be on your way to school!" I yelled.
"I forgot my notebook. Where'd you get the party shoes, Lana?" She bent down to get a closer look.
"They're not new. See?" I held up the right one so she could see the sole was all dirty from walking. "Carmen gave 'em to me last night because they hurt her."
"Why did Carmen give you a pair of shoes, Lana?" Grandma snapped quick. I never heard her talk like that before. "Last night Carmen gave you shoes and yesterday morning you found five dollars."
"It's true," I insisted. "I found the money right out in the gutter, and then last night Carmen gave me the shoes. What's so important about that?"
"Nothing, if you're telling the truth." Grandma sighed, as if she wasn't sure whether or not to believe me. "I don't want you taking advantage because Mom's not here."
I glared at Rita and shoved her toward the door. "Go on before you're late for school."
I went over to Joanie and pulled her away from the new doll carriage. Last night when she went to sleep, she made me put it right beside the bed so she'd see it first thing in the morning when she woke up. I had a hard time to keep her from taking it right into bed with her. The others took turns playing with that little doll with the bride's clothes I'd bought. She had a veil and a bouquet of flowers and everything. I wished I'd bought a present for each of the girls, instead of just that box of candy. Next time I would, I promised myself. Only, would there-be a next time? That photographer had talked about lots of jobs for me, only he hadn't said anything like that afterwards. If it was Carmen, I'll bet he'd have her coming back all the time.
I took Joanie over to the day nursery that was keeping her till Mom got home, then I hurried on to school. I was excited about showing off my radio and the new sandals, even if they were too high-heeled and fancy for school. They made my legs look terrific. Mom says high heels always make your legs look better-that's why models always wear 'em. Someday I might take one of those modeling courses they kept advertising in the newspapers. "You can be a model," it always said. I was already, sort of. He took pictures of me, lots of 'em. If I could get hold of more money, I'd save it till I had enough to take a modeling course.
It was fun to see the surprised looks on everybody's faces at school. They'd been so sure I was handing 'em a line. I rubbed it in good, too, explaining how the radio arrived exactly on my birthday, like 'Top" promised it would, and how he sent me sandals to wear when I went out to celebrate. But after a while nobody wanted to hear about it anymore. It didn't mean a thing that Lana Hendrick's father sent her a radio from California. They all had fathers and birthday presents.
After school I went right on home instead of hanging around on the corner fooling with the others the way I did most days. I had things on my mind, about how I was going to be a model and have a hundred pairs of shoes. I started to figure what we'd have for supper tonight. I knew there wasn't much use poking into the coffee tin where Mom kept the food money. It was always empty two or three days before our Welfare check came. I looked anyway. We had forty cents left. If Mom worked she could make more than we got from Welfare. Mom had this terrible thing about working, like it was a crime. She was awful sweet about setting my hair and letting me use her perfume special times, but she wouldn't go out to work. I guess she never got over being so pretty and not finding a rich guy to marry her.
Tonight I'd go over to the hospital to see Mom and the new baby. Anyhow, it'd be better than hanging around the house. I didn't even have a new movie magazine to read. Maybe I'd run over and borrow one from Carmen, I decided. She got home from work early right now-it was their slow season. I changed into my red slim jims and a tee shirt and hurried downstairs to Carmen's. I'd have to try to explain about last night, I remembered. She musta thought I was real kooky to go running off the way I did. I was waiting for the light to change when I saw her. She was hanging on to Chuck like he was solid gold and all hers. She looked over at me and said, "Hi," cold as ice. Watching Chuck and her walk down the street together, I thought how I must of been nuts to be so wild about Chuck. What was so terrific about him being eighteen? And he looked like a real hood.
I went on back to the house, till it was time to go for Joanie.
Once I had the little kids in bed and Rita was almost finished drying the dishes, I started out for the hospital, taking the baby's present along so Mom could show it around. I'd fixed my hair like B.B.'s and did my eyes the way she did hers because Mom liked having people say I was good-looking, even though she pretended it was just making me conceited.
I got to the hospital just at visiting time so I went right on upstairs. Mom was wearing the nightie she'd bought special for the hospital. She looked almost pretty.
"Everything all right at home?" Mom smiled and turned to the woman in the bed next to hers before I could even answer. "Myra, this is my oldest," she said proudly, sliding an arm around me. "Isn't she something?"
"Yeah, she'll do all right." Myra looked me up and down. "You don't need to worry none about her."
"Myra used to be a model before she got married," Mom said. "Girdles and bras. Myra, you think maybe Lana could do that when she finishes school?"
Myra frowned, as though she was trying to make up her mind. "The kid's stacked! But for girdles you gotta be awful skinny," she explained and giggled. "That's why I stopped the lingerie showrooms and went in for art modeling. On account of I can't keep away from the refrigerator."
I remembered what that character had said yesterday. "I'm thinking of the art." I was catching on. Myra posed for pictures like I did-before the photographer got other ideas.
Mom kept yakking about how beautiful she was when she was my age and all the chances she messed up on, and how it was going to be different with me. But I was thinking all the time she was talking about modeling girdles and bras. I couldn't wait to get home to start looking at the pictures of models in bras and girdles. They were skinny around the waist and hips, but I was too. I was lots bigger up top, but maybe they had trouble finding girls built like me and they had to take that kind. The more I thought about it, the better it sounded. Lana Hendricks modeling girdles and bras. I knew about showrooms from hearing Carmen talk about her shop. Tomorrow I wouldn't go to school again. I'd say I had to go to the hospital to bring Mom and the new baby home. I had to go out and find myself a job.
I was so excited thinking about modeling in a lingerie showroom I couldn't fall asleep. I kept tossing back and forth on that broken-down couch, wishing it was morning and I was on my way downtown.
I was nervous when I stood waiting for the elevator to take me up to Adorable Lingerie. I hoped I'd picked the right kind of place-I mean, that they used models. I'd hunted in the Classified Directory under "Lingerie, Manufacturers", and this was the first name in the list. I was wearing my new outfit and I'd borrowed Mom's perfume. I kept remembering what I'd decided I'd say when I got into the office. I said it over and over again until the elevator came down, and I walked inside it. I could feel my heart beating hard when the elevator started upward.
"Ninth floor," the operator said, and I held my breath and headed for Adorable Lingerie.
It was easy to find, right across the hall from the elevator, almost staring me in the face. I opened the door and walked inside, trying not to look too scared. If I said I was eighteen and they believed me, nobody'd ask me for working papers.
"Yes?" The girl at the desk looked up at me like she was wondering what I was doing standing there.
"A friend of mine told me to come up here about a modeling job," I said fast. "She said I was the type to model girdles and bras, and maybe you'd have something for me."
She stared at me, knowing I was making it all up, but when she smiled, it was friendly. "Sorry, honey, you wouldn't be the type for Adorable."
"Say, Connie, didn't you get hold of Arline yet?" a heavyset guy with a cigar came tearing out a side door.
"She's out of town. I was just coming in to tell you," the girl behind the desk started to explain, then both of 'em were staring at me.
"You take care of the young lady here?" he asked her, smiling at me.
"She's interested in a modeling job," the girl said, and they were cooking up something, I could tell from their eyes.
"Maybe we can use her for Arline's assignment this morning. What's your name, sweetie?"
"Lana Hendricks. I did some modeling for a photographer," I said, trying not to sound so breathless.
"Well, Lana, maybe we have a job you can handle." He put an arm about my shoulders and walked me inside to his own office. He led me to a chair, then went around to sit behind the desk. "I'd been counting on Arline to handle this special job for us. We have a customer who comes in town every two or three months, and he always likes a private showing with one model." He shut up a minute, just staring into space. "This Mr. John, he's a nice guy but he has some screwy ideas sometimes. Think you'd know how to be nice and friendly with a character like that?"
"Sure," I said, wondering what he meant by screwy ways.
"Arline models our whole line for him alone. He likes to take his time in deciding which numbers he wants. And if he makes a lot of trouble for you, he'll give you a hefty present." He winked at me and went on like it was all settled. "He's due in about eleven. The job'll pay you five bucks an hour, starting right this minute. Whatever Mr. John gives you is between you and him."
"Fine!" I said right away. I'd make ten dollars even if it took only one hour to model for this buyer. Not counting a present. And this time I was working for a real manufacturer.
"The girls here all call me Solly. You do, too, Lana." He jumped and walked around to me. "Now stand up and let me see what we have to work with here."
I stood up and he walked all around me and when he looked at my bra measurements, he whistled.
"You got lots more than most of my girls," he grinned at me and let his fingers run around the neckline of my blouse, "But I think you'll work out great." He pushed a button on his desk and another girl came in, not the one he'd called Connie. "Lana's going to take care of Mr. John's showing today. You take her to the private showroom and fix her up."
"Okay, Solly." She nodded to the door for me to follow and I went right along with her.
She took me down a long hallway to a room all the way at the end. It had a long, low sofa in it and a table with a lamp that could be turned around like a spotlight. She lit the lamp and turned it so it hit a spot smack in the middle of the room. That's where I was supposed to stand and show the garments, she said. Just keep walking around in the light until Mr. John told me to put on something else. She pointed to a screen in the corner where I could make changes.
"Okay, sit down and rest, honey," she finished up. "I'll send somebody in with the garments, and some magazines so you won't fall asleep waiting."
"Thanks!" She was treating me as if I was a professional model.
"Say, hon, you like some coffee or a soda? Solly sends out around now. It's on the house."
"A coke'd be swell." This was terrific, even better than I thought it'd be. It was sure lots more fun than sticking in school.
I sat down on the sofa and crossed my legs, watching myself in the mirror. This mirror was practically a whole wall. After a few minutes a woman came in with a bunch of girdles and bras, and she showed me how to hook them and unhook them. I was kinda leery about them fitting. I wondered if I oughta to get into one or wait, when a smart-alecky kid came in with my coke.
"A new burnt-offerin' this time!" he cracked and turned to look me up and down while he walked out the door. I didn't pay any attention to him, just sat there and drank my coke. I wished the girl had sent me the magazines she'd promised, but I suppose she forgot.
The door opened again. This time it was Connie. "Mr. John's inside with the boss. He wants you to put on an outfit and stand by."
"Which one?" I showed her the pile sitting there on the chair.
"Oh, it doesn't matter," she shrugged. "Put on any of
'em."
I went behind the screen and undressed. I reached over for the cutest girdle and put it on. Then I had to find a bra I could get into. I was beginning to worry. How'd they expect me to model B-cup bras when I was a D, and bulging outta that?
Somebody knocked on the door. "Come in," I yelled, feeling shaky inside like I had stage fright. I stopped worrying and hooked the one bra that met across the back. I hoped I could keep breathing.
"Take your time, Miss Lana," a man's voice said, and then I walked out into the room, trying to move the way the models did in the movies. "Hmm-hmmm," he said as if he liked it, then sat down on the sofa. "Now walk around, up and down, up and down." He was almost singing it.
I did like he said, at the same time trying to see what he looked like. He wore a diamond stick pin in his tie and there was a diamond ring on his pinkie. I was taller than he was in my high heels but I'll bet he weighed twice as much as me. He sat there tapping his fingers together and nodding, and I was wondering when he was going to ask me to model the next one or if I was supposed to ask him.
"All right, Miss Lana. Let me see a black girdle. You don't need to change the bra. I want to see a black girdle." He stopped mopping the perspiration off his face and took off his jacket. He was wearing a pink silk shirt that musta cost a lot of money.
I went behind the screen and changed as fast as I could. I figured he was getting impatient because he kept walking back and forth. I came out and walked around like I had before. It was awful hot under that lamp. I wished I could turn it off. He musta read my mind because he reached over and turned it off. Then he came over to me for a closer look at the black girdle.
The way he kept inspecting it, I decided he'd buy this one for sure.
"How does it feel, honey? My customers like to be comfortable." He ran his hand across the panel down the front of the girdle and I started to get crazy ideas again. "Not too tight?"
"No," I said, smiling.
"Sure?" He ran his hand up and down the panel now. "It feels fine."
He reached into his pocket for his wallet and pulled out a ten dollar bill. "Think a little something like this would fit down there? He smiled and shoved the ten dollar bill down the waist. I stood there waiting. "Now, honey, I got another ten bucks right here that says I can fish out that first ten." He put one hand on my hip and held a ten in the other. "What do you say? We go fishing?"
That was twenty dollars, not counting what Solly was paying me. This was as crazy as the other day! "Okay," I said, my eyes wandering to the door. Solly only hired me to model girdles.
"Don't worry about the door, Gorgeous. Nobody comes in when Mr. John's buying." Suddenly he bust out laughing and jerked me to him. Then he was pushing one hand down the front of the girdle, shoving the bill all the way down and laughing like a hyena till he got it sticking halfway out one leg of that girdle. He let the bill stay there a while and made like he was hunting for another bill. He was so rough I was hoping he'd stop soon. After another few minutes he got tired and reached for the bill, swatted me across the can, and stuck both tens into my bra. Then he started down the back of the girdle, pinching me like a lunatic. "Take it off," he yelled suddenly. "Take that damn thing off!"
"You didn't say nothing about that," I told him, scared of that screwy look in his eyes.
"I'm saying it now!" His face was al!" red and the veins stuck out on his forehead. "Here." He flung another ten on the floor. "Take off that girdle and you'll have ten dollar bills waiting for you all over the floor!" He was pulling out bills like they were soap coupons.
I pulled the girdle off quick as I could and bent down for the ten dollars. That's when he took off his belt and hit me right across the can. I yelled.
"Ten dollar bills, baby. All you want." He was hitting me across the stomach, then across the back, and I screamed loud again. He was nuts.
He kept whaling me with that belt and I kept on screaming till the door flew open and Solly and another guy came in and pulled him off me.
"He's crazy! He oughta be in a nuthouse!" I couldn't stop crying now.
"Take it easy, baby. Take it easy." The other fella helped me up to my feet and over to the screen. He even helped me into my clothes. I heard Solly say something about taking me out of there before we got into trouble.
"He's a creep! He kept hitting me with that belt like he was going out of his mind!" How'd I ever explain those bruises to Mom. She'd kill me.
"Baby, it's all right. Now let's you and me go somewhere so you can sit down and relax."
My mascara was running down my face and my hair was a mess. I didn't even care. I let him take me down the freight elevator and then into a cab. I didn't even think about where he was taking me.
We drove all the way up the west side to somewhere on Riverside Drive, then the cab turned off and he was leading me into one of those old brownstones you see around there. By now I knew his name was Joe Evans and he was a salesman for Adorable Lingerie.
He took me up to a third floor back apartment that was fixed up real nice. He had a living room and a tiny little bedroom, and when you looked out the windows you saw trees down below. In the next yard somebody had planted grass and put chairs and a beach umbrella out there.
"This is swell." I said, almost forgetting about my bruises.
"Now, you take yourself in there," he pointed to the bathroom, "and fix your face and your hair and you'll feel lots better. I'll throw together something for us to eat. Okay?" He smiled and I was sure I'd never seen anybody so good-looking except in the movies.
"Okay." I was in a hurry now to get rid of the streaks of mascara and my messed-up lipstick so he'd see I wasn't a freak.
The bathroom was pretty, tile on the walls and crazy striped shower curtains and a big light over the medicine cabinet so I could see myself good. And he had one of those door mirrors I always wanted. I musta been slower than I thought because he was knocking on the door to tell me lunch was ready.
It was crazy, sitting down at the table by the living room window and having him serve me like this. He was some doll. He even phoned down to the drugstore for some gook for me to use to cover up my bruises. It was lucky Mom wouldn't be coming home from the hospital for a coupla days. I'd have to make sure I was all dressed around the kids, with their big yaps. Then all of a sudden I remembered something.
"I didn't get my money, Joe!" I was so shocked my eyes filled up with tears. I'd just walked out!
"Don't worry, baby," he patted my hand. "It'll be there for you."
"I can't go back to that place. I can't!" I got panicky just thinking about it. Only, I had to have that money. It was mine. I was going to buy presents for the girls and a bathing suit and, if it was enough, maybe a phonograph. I'd planned it all, standing under that hot light parading in the girdles for that nut.
"I tell you what, sweetie, I'll collect it for you. Then you meet me here tomorrow and I'll give it to you. Solly'll make sure the old boy coughs up plenty. Maybe you'll have an even hundred by the time it reaches you tomorrow. How's that?"
"A hundred dollars?" My eyes nearly popped out.
"You leave it to Uncle Joe. One hundred smackers. It's a promise." He patted me on the cheek as if he liked me kinda special. "What time can you be here?"
"Tomorrow I'm busy." I was thinking hard about when I could come. I couldn't miss school again, not when this was next to the last week. "I mean, I have to take care of my baby sister all day," I lied. "But I could come later, maybe around seven o'clock. Would that be all right?"
"That'd be great, baby." He reached over and kissed me on the nose, like this was a scene in a movie, and then he went over to fill up our coffee cups again.
I was sorry when it was time to go home but I could see he had to rush back to work because Solly called him up and he told him he'd be right back. But I'd see Joe again tomorrow when I came for my hundred bucks.
This was the screwiest week in my whole life, I kept thinking on the way home, dreaming about that hundred dollars. I'd hide half of it to save for my modeling course, I made myself swear, and I'd have to be careful about spending the rest so nobody got suspicious. I was dying for a phonograph and some records. Maybe I could cook up something about baby-sitting for somebody I met in the park and I could say she gave me the phonograph. Mom would expect me to give her part of my baby-sitting money for the house, but I could use what she figured was the rest to buy presents for the girls. I giggled to myself, sitting there on the subway. It was a good thing I was always good in arithmetic.
All through the rest of the day and next day I kept wishing it was time to go to Joe's and collect my money. Not just for the money but because I wanted to see him again. Maybe he'd ask me to stay and have coffee or something with him again. Boy, wouldn't I love to live in a flat like that, with a rug so soft you could lie right on the floor and feel comfortable, and that furniture he had that didn't match like a suite but you knew it belonged together. Joe wasn't only so good-looking-he was nice. He treated me as if I was somebody important.
I kept singing while I put supper on the table, and everybody talked and giggled as if this was a party instead of spaghetti for the third night running. Mom was coming home tomorrow morning with our new brother, so the kids figured I was all hopped up over that. We were trying to guess what Mom would name him. It'd be swell to have Mom back, I admitted, even if I did get awful tired of her talking about the same old things all the time. And I loved holding a tiny baby in my arms, like I did with Joanie when she was littler.
I was glad when everybody was set and I could sneak out. I said I was going to the library to look up something for school and then maybe I'd go over to Carmen's to try to borrow some magazines. I didn't dare wear my new skirt and blouse-they were stuck in a box I hid under the studio couch where nobody'd ever look. I was the only one who ever cleaned up under there.
I was so impatient to see Joe again I could of sworn at the subway for creeping so. I was standing at the door before the train was halfway into the station. Then I ran all the way up the steps and the two blocks to his house. I stood there a couple of seconds before I rang the bell so I wouldn't come bouncing in all out of breath. I didn't want him to guess I was dying to see him again.
When I reached the top of the stairs, he was waiting for me. He had on a short-sleeved sport shirt that exactly matched his slacks, and all of a sudden I wondered if my red slim jims weren't awful loud.
"Hi there, sweetie." he flashed me a big smile. "Feeling better tonight?"
"Oh, yeah." I walked into the room and looked around. He'd put the lamps on and it looked even better than I remembered. Soft and soothing. "It's so pretty here," I said.
"Not fancy, but comfortable." He was reaching into his wallet. "Here you are, Lana. Five twenties. Is that okay?"
"Gee, thanks!" I took it, almost feeling guilty.
"How about a cocktail to celebrate?"
"Sure." All I ever drank before was port wine at Carmen's two or three times.
Joe was looking at me funny now. "Honey, how old are you, anyway?"
"Seventeen." I didn't dare lie more than that.
He took me by the shoulders and sat me down in a chair. "Coffee for you, baby." He went over to the stove and started fussing with the percolator. I couldn't get over the way he acted as if I was something special.
"Sandwich?" He opened the refrigerator and was poking his nose inside.
"No, thanks, I just had dinner. Besides," I grinned, "if I'm gonna be a model, I better start watching my shape."
He turned around and looked at me, grinning back. "Lana, doll, let me watch-just the way it is right now."
"Joe...." Then I shut up, wondering if I oughta ask him.
"Yeah?"
"Joe, that Mr. John, he's a nut, ain't he?"
"Yeah, a sadist. Most times he's satisfied just to look, though, and let his mind do things. But I hear Arline's had a few rough sessions with him. That's how he gets his kicks."
"Modeling isn't always like that, is it?"
He threw back his head and laughed. "Golly, no! Believe me, Solly is only in the business of manufacturing and selling ladies lingerie." He walked over to the radio and turned on some music. "Dance?"
"You bet." I was right on my feet, wishing I had on my new skirt because of the way it whirled around when I danced.
Joe reached out his arms and we started to cha-cha. He was terrific.
"Baby, you're good." He sounded surprised. I was glad he noticed. I was wild about dancing.
"Joe, you think I could be a model?" I asked.
"Let's talk about that later." He pulled me closer, concentrating on dancing. That was okay with me.
When the record finished and the announcer popped in, Joe held me there, waiting for the next record.
"Your rhythm's great, baby. And where'd you learn to dance this way?"
"A girl I know taught me. She's almost a professional." Carmen won a couple contests and next year she was entering the Harvest Moon.
The next record started to spin. It was an oldie, one Mom was nuts about. "I Can't Give You Anything But Love, Baby." Joe held me close enough so my hair brushed against his cheeks. He was singing the lyrics. I was somewhere off in outer space. Dancing with Joe was like something in a dream world. He was lots taller than me and built like I don't know what. His body felt strong, all muscle, and he tapered in neat at the waist, like Tab Hunter or Tony Curtis. I bet Joe had a million gals chasing after him. I was praying the record wouldn't ever stop. When it did, we just stood there a minute, and then he pushed back my face and kissed me. He was sweet and strong and gentle, all at the same time.
"Baby, wait," he said and hurried over to turn off the percolator. We'd forgot about it till that running-over sound hit us. I didn't move an inch, waiting for him to come back. Then he was holding me again and whispering in my ear, "Baby, you've got a body that drives me out of my mind. Plain out of my mind!"
"Me, too," I whispered back, thinking how sensational it was to have a guy like Joe nuts about me. Joe was like a movie star.
He pulled at my tee shirt till it was out of my slim jims, then he slid his hand underneath, his face still pressing against mine. "You don't mind this, do you, honey?"
"Oh, no," I said quick. And he was asking me.
He was having some trouble with the hooks on my bra, but he finally made it, then he helped me out of the shirt and bra, so gentle and sweet, as if I was made of glass. He threw them on the sofa and started to kiss me again, everywhere I was bare. Soft, tiny kisses that made me jump up and down inside. When he started to unzip the slim jims, I wanted to help him. Finally he had everything off except the sandals, and he picked me up like a baby and carried me inside to the bed. I lay there watching while he took off his clothes. He was the best-looking guy I'd ever seen, and the nicest. I didn't want to push him away like that photographer or nutty Mr. John. Like he'd said about me, he was driving me crazy. I never knew anything could be like this. He slid alongside me on the bed and began to kiss me again. He kissed me and made love to me all over and I kept wishing this would go on forever and at the same time, I didn't want him to stall this way. "Oh, Joe, don't wait! Don't wait!" I was crying and digging into him with my nails, and he wasn't waiting anymore.
After a while we just stayed there all tangled up and I guess I musta been crying because he kept wiping at my eyes and laughing.
"Baby, you're the greatest!" he said over and over.
"Am I, honest?" I was all starry-eyed, listening to him.
"Believe me, you're a natural. You'd make a fortune as a call girl."
Then he sat up and looked at me slowly, from my face right down to my toes. I felt all happy and peaceful inside. The greasy photographer hadn't liked me and Mr. John only wanted to belt me, but Joe said I was the greatest.
"Baby, let's talk business." Joe jumped off the bed and started putting on his clothes. "What kind of business?"
"You and me. A partnership. Sweetie, you'll have a big apartment ten times better than this and tons of clothes and all the money you ever dreamed about. We'll have to work first, of course, to smarten you up. Buy some decent clothes, cut down on the make-up, take you to a top hairstylist. But, baby, this is one investment we'll get back a million times."
He didn't have to explain what he was talking about. I got that crack he'd made about me making a fortune as a call girl.
"Joe, is it okay? I mean, I don't want to do anything that'll land me trouble."
"Lana, angel, you leave everything to Uncle Joe." He bent down to kiss me again. "Now, partners or not?"
"Partners." I smiled back.
Whatever Joe said, it had to be all right. I had to be with him now. Besides, what was so awful? Mom was dumb; she did it for nothing. All she got was Welfare checks and a new baby every two or three years. Me, I was going to live like a movie star!
CHAPTER FOUR
I didn't have to go to school today because I was supposed to bring Mom and the baby home from the hospital. I had to be at Joe's at twelve o'clock, so I kept hoping Mom was let out early.
I'd told Joe about Mom and the baby and Welfare. He was so sweet, not smart-alecky or nasty like most people when they found out. I made up my mind when I saw him today I'd tell him everything. I didn't want to lie to Joe. Only, I'd die if he didn't want to be partners with me no more. Maybe it was crazy to tell him, I was thinking as I left Joanie at the day nursery and started over for the hospital.
I went upstairs to take Mom's clothes to her, then the nurse sent me back downstairs to wait. Somebody'd left a magazine on the bench, so I started to look through it for pictures. Joe said he'd have to buy me some smart clothes and do something about my make-up and hair. I looked hard at the pictures in the magazines, trying to decide what he was talking about. I copied my hairdo from the movie magazines and did my eyes with liners and pencil and everything, like the movie stars did. At least, I thought so. But Joe was hep; if he said I should fix myself different, he must be right. Joe was the swellest guy I ever knew. I guess that's why I was getting more and more scared about spilling the truth.
"Lana." I nearly fell off the bench when Mom called me, I was so busy staring at the models in the magazine.
"You all set?" I went over and took the hatbox she was carrying. A nurse carried the baby, and I couldn't help going right over to see him. "Golly, he's cute!"
"His name's Mark," Mom said. I wondered who she'd got that from. I couldn't think of anybody but Mark Stevens.
"I'll go for a taxi," I popped out recklessly and Mom looked at me awful sharp. "I baby-sat last night," I lied, praying Mom wouldn't ask Grandma or the kids about it.
I went outside and signaled for a cab like I had seen people do in the street, then Mom got inside and the nurse handed her the baby. I climbed in and gave the cab driver our address. It felt terrific, like I was somebody rich, or maybe Brigitte Bardot. From now on I'd be riding taxis lots of times!
All the way home Mom kept yapping about how swell it was in the hospital with nurses serving meals and waiting on her. And you could see she was plain crazy about having a boy this time.
"Got yourself a brother, Lana baby. How do you like that?"
"Terrific," I said, figuring if Mom was so nuts about the new baby, she wouldn't be paying too much attention to what I was doing.
"You don't have to go to school this afternoon, honey," Mom decided. "We'll just sit around the house and gab. I tell you what-you run over to the bakery and buy some of them whipped cream things you like so much. We'll make ourselves a party."
"I can't," I said, fast. "I have to go to school soon as you get settled in the house. We're having tests today."
I rang Joe's bell but nobody answered. I rang it again, worrying that I'd come at the wrong time. But Joe had said twelve o'clock, I coulda sworn.
"Sorry I'm late, sweetie." Joe came running up the steps, lugging a big box under his arm. I was sure glad to see him.
"I thought I'd forgot the time you told me to be here," I said, watching to see if he'd notice I was wearing my hair different. I'd copied it from a picture in the magazine.
"No. I got stuck with a pest of a customer. Come on," he hurried me inside and up the stairs. "I have to be back at the showroom in an hour."
We went inside Joe's apartment and he threw down the box and started dialing the phone right away. Nobody answered.
"I'll try again in five minutes." He reached inside the cabinet I'd noticed before, and brought out a bottle. "I've had to run around like crazy all day, just when I need time to sit down and plan everything right. No mistakes on this deal." He went over to the kitchenette for a glass. "
"Joe, I think I'd better tell you something," I started, feeling all hot inside like I'd been caught cheating in school and I knew the teacher'd give me hell.
"Honey, you aren't getting cold feet?" He stopped dead, holding the glass in his hand.
"Oh, no," I told him quick. "Only, if we're partners, you oughta know the truth about me."
"Okay, sweetie, go ahead and spill." He pulled me down on the sofa beside him and poured himself a drink. "I guess it wouldn't hurt if you have a little swig to celebrate."
"Joe, I'm not seventeen. I'm fifteen." I spit it right out.
Joe stared at me, then he threw his head back and laughed till I thought he'd pop. "You sure fooled me!" He kept shaking his head back and forth as if he couldn't believe it.
"You're not sore?"
"Baby, fifteen-year-olds come high in this racket, and I know the customers who can pay." Then he looked real sharp at me and I could see worries jumping into his mind. "Fifteen years old means you have to go to school, doesn't it?"
"Yeah." I began to wish I'd kept my mouth shut. "But school closes next week."
Joe got to his feet and started to walk around the room. "I see a lotta problems. Like your old lady. How're you going to explain about where you are nights?"
"I'll figure out something." I was desperate now. "She won't catch on, Joe. Honest."
"We have to be sure. When I set you up with a client, I want to know you'll be there." He grinned. "Client is what we call the suckers from now on, baby. You'll get used to it."
"Then it's okay?" I babbled, hopeful again.
"Okay on one condition. You tell me exactly how you're going to put this across so your old lady won't know." He stood there, waiting for an answer from me.
"I could say I was baby-sitting! I did it a few times already." It was only once but I didn't have to tell that to Joe. The more I thought about the baby-sitting line, the more I liked it. "She wouldn't mind if I went out to baby-sit."
"She won't ask for addresses or phone numbers or anything to louse you up?"
"Not my old lady," I said, glad for once she was that way. "If she thinks I'm making money honest, she'll be tickled to death. Mom's always broke a week before her check comes in."
Joe kept pacing back and forth, not saying a thing. Then he sat down. "Okay, Lana, we'll give it a whirl. But we'll have to be smart about things. We'll start off slow. Maybe one night a week for two or three weeks, then we'll add another, and a few weeks later another." He stopped then, frowning.
"What's the matter?"
"What happens when school opens? Your old lady letting you run wild on school nights?"
"It's okay," I insisted. "I can do homework while I baby-sit. All the kids do. Mom won't care."
"Then we have to set up this baby-setting angle," Joe decided. "You tell your mother you met this gal in the park and she liked you, see? And so you're going to baby-sit for her."
"I can tell Mom she saw me with Joanie and said if I was so good with my own sister, I'd be swell for her baby," I figured out, feeling all excited inside. "How's that, Joe?"
"You got a brain there, kid." He kissed me on the cheek, as if I was Joanie or Rita. "That's great. You need to use you head if you want to move ahead in this game. And that's for us." He turned around to look at the clock. "Let me try that number again."
Joe went over to the phone and dialed. "2104," he said, and waited. "Hello, Mr. Skinner? Joe Evans." He winked at me. "I've got that number I told you about. It's a beautiful thing, and absolutely brand new ... No, sir, nobody's seen this one before. It's a-" he was looking around for a word, I guess. "It's a size fifteen, get me?" Then he smiled, real pleased with himself. "That's right, fifteen. Even better than I promised you ... You can pick it up at my place in about twenty minutes....What we agreed on....That's it." He hung up, then hurried over and started opening up the box. "Baby, you're working your first job."
"When?"
"In about twenty minutes." He patted me on the fanny. "You mean right now?" My eyes nearly popped. "Why not?"
"I have to go home a few minutes after three. Mom expects me to be coming back from school about then."
"Don't worry. I'll explain it to the guy. As a matter-of-fact, it's a great gimmick: school kid having to keep school hours."
"But I didn't know it'd be so quick. I mean, I thought we were just going to talk some more today." I had this panicky feeling.
"Honey, it's for us. Don't you want us to be partners? And remember all those gorgeous clothes and the places we'll be able to go with that dough coming in. Ever been to a real nightclub? I don't mean some dinky bar and grill."
"No," I admitted, thinking how nightclubs always looked in the movies and on TV. "Joe, you mean it? You'll take me to nightclubs?"
"Sure thing, baby. Soon as we get ourselves organized, we'll go out on the town."
I was busting with excitement, seeing myself all dressed up and doing the cha-cha with Joe at maybe the Latin Quarter or the Copa.
Joe looked at his watch, nervous again. "The character oughta be here soon so we can't waste time. He's after a kid who's new, one that he can break in himself. He's an old guy and the younger they come the better." He gave me a big grin. You're even better than I promised." Joe threw the box onto a chair. "Put these on quick."
Joe walked over to the windows and pulled down the blinds while I picked up a pink and white striped dress and just stared at it. It was so awful young-looking! The sorta dress Rita wears. And the slip was white, with no lace or anything.
"I think the shoes'll fit okay." Joe bent down to measure a pair of flat-heeled ballet slippers alongside my high-heeled sandals.
"I don't get it," I said, standing there like a dope.
"Baby, he expects a wide-eyed little innocent, what you'd find in a small-town high school." He pulled me close for a minute and I knew I didn't have to put on no act with Joe. He liked me just the way I was.
"I still don't know what you mean," I admitted, wishing this old guy wasn't coming over, that there was nobody there but Joe and me and that bed in the other room.
"Baby, it's like this. He wants a young, innocent kid he can teach the ropes. You make out you're scared, but in a sweet way, see? Let him do everything until he's ready to go, and then you're nuts about him, see? You never had anything like this and it's the greatest! He'll be so hot by then he won't know the difference." He held me against him, rocking back and forth, and I thought maybe he was changing his mind. But then he started to help me out of my clothes.
"Joe," I said, when all my clothes were lying in a pile on the floor, "lock the door and pretend nobody's here when he comes. Joe, please!" I was crazy about him. I didn't want nobody else-just Joe.
"Baby, it's for us," he whispered, running his hands up and down my back. "That money is for our nest egg. Now you put on these clothes, then go inside and wash all that gook off your face. Nothing but power and a tiny bit of lipstick, understand?" He reached for the bra he'd bought for me and held it up. He sure was good at guessing sizes.
"Okay, Joe." I had to do like he said-Joe was doing this for us.
The dress was a little tight and the shoes pinched across the front but Joe insisted I was terrific. I took one look at myself in the bathroom mirror and bust out giggling. I felt like I was got up for a masquerade ball.
The doorbell rang while Joe was still fooling with my hair and I could feel my heart beating awful fast.
"Take it easy, Lana honey." He bent over to kiss me hard, but when I slid my arms around him, he pulled 'em away and went to answer the door.
I went on into the living room and sat down, feeling so funny in the square dress and the kid shoes. And no make-up! It was if I was walking in the street without my clothes. I was nervous, too. I had to do okay or Joe wouldn't want me around. I remembered about that garlicy photographer and how he was mad on accounta I "didn't show no appreciation." After Joe, I knew what he was talking about. I was learning.
"Glad to see you, Mr. Skinner!" Joe was bringing this guy into the room. "I want you to meet Miss Lana. You'll understand, fella, if she's a little nervous." He swatted Mr. Skinner on the back, like this was a big joke.
"So this is little Lana." Mr. Skinner put out his hand and I took it. He wasn't anything like I figured on. He was tall and no heavier than Joe and sorta dignified. I remembered a movie I saw once with a judge. That's what Mr. Skinner looked like.
"Hello," I said, catching Joe's signal. "Pleased to meet you, Mr. Skinner."
"And why aren't you in school today, young lady?" Mr. Skinner laughed and slapped Joe on the shoulder.
"I played hooky," I said, telling the truth, and the two of them nearly died laughing.
"I'll tell you what-I'll fix us all quick drinks because I have to be getting back to the office. What do you say, Mr. Skinner?"
"Fine. And make that a quick one, boy!" Mr. Skinner winked at Joe.
"Why don't you two take a look at my scrapbook while I fix the drinks?" Joe said. He opened up the cabinet where he kept the bottles and then he threw this big red leather scrapbook over to Mr. Skinner.
"That's not a bad idea, Joe." Mr. Skinner brought the scrapbook over to the sofa where I was sitting and opened it up. Behind Mr. Skinner's back I could see Joe pouring straight gingerale into one glass that didn't match the other two. He held it up and pointed to me. I was catching on fast. "Well, this is quite a scrapbook," Mr. Skinner said loudly. "Come on, honey, look at it with me."
The scrapbook had pictures of a lotta girls in different poses. None of 'em had a stitch of clothes on. I could feel myself getting red, which was crazy because they didn't have anything I didn't have. But it was nutty to be looking at pictures like that with Mr. Skinner.
"Here's to us." Joe came over and handed us each a glass.
"I'll bet you drink all the time," Mr. Skinner said to me, a funny look in his eyes.
"I never had anything stronger than holy wine," I said and it wasn't no he. I drank the gingerale as if it was awful strong. I seen movie stars do that in pictures lotsa times.
"Well, I have to dash," Joe told us and headed for the door with a big smile.
"Don't let us hold you up, Joe." Mr. Skinner walked over to the door and they went outside together. Then Mr. Skinner came back in, making sure the door was locked. He even put on the chain.
"How about another drink?" He walked over and took the glass I was holding.
"Oh, no," I said, scared he'd fix me a real one. "I mean, I'm seeing double from that one already." I giggled.
"We don't want to make a little girl like you drunk, do we?" He sat down and put an arm around me. "Now, how about taking a look at that scrapbook some more?"
"Okay." I waited for him to start turning the pages.
He stared at those pictures like he was an FBI man searching for a clue. He kept one arm tight about me all the time and he was moving his-leg up and down alongside mine.
"You aren't afraid of me, are you, dear?" He left the scrapbook laying there and patted me on the knee.
"Not much." I figured if he wanted a dumb kid then I'd make like one.
"Sure you don't want another drink?" he asked me again.
"Oh, no. I'm awful warm from this one." I musta said the right thing because he smiled as if he was pleased.
"Why don't we make ourselves comfortable then?" He got up and took off his jacket and pulled off his tie. I sat waiting, the way Joe told me to do. "You think those girls in the pictures are attractive?"
'Yeah. Some of 'em look like movie stars," I said, meaning it. I guess lotsa girls pose that way.
"I'll bet you look just as good. I tell you what." He pulled me up to my feet. "Why don't we prove you're every bit as attractive as any one of them?"
"How?" I was still waiting for him, like Joe said.
"You pose just the way they did, and let me be the judge. How does that sound?"
"All right." I got up and then I wondered what I ought to do. I didn't have to wonder long because he was right there to show me. I stood still and let him pull the zipper down the back of that crazy pink dress. He slid it off the shoulders so it fell down around my feet. Then he was dragging the slip down over my hips, not over my head like anybody else would, and I nearly started to giggle. He kept staring at my bra like he couldn't believe I was real. Then he unhooked it slowly, as if he wanted to enjoy every second of it. When he got it off, he threw it over in the corner, and suddenly pushed me down onto the sofa and fell to his knees. I felt so silly sitting there while he kissed me in that slobbery way he was doing. Kissing me all the way down to my belly button. Then he got up and pulled me up on my feet, too.
"Now don't be frightened, baby doll," he was whispering. "You aren't frightened, are you, baby doll?"
"Not much," I whispered back, noticing the way his shoe was dirtying my panties when he kicked them off to one side.
"You be good to old Freddie here and I'll make you happy, honey. Awful happy."
I was wishing he'd turn off the lights but he didn't seem to mind. He just kept on running his hands up and down, all over. It gave me a funny feeling. His breath was coming heavy now and he made me nearly laugh the way his heart kept thumping so hard right against me. Why couldn't this be Joe, I asked myself. Joe wasn't old and soft around the middle like Mr. Skinner. When Joe did this, I wanted him like crazy.
"Come on, let's go into the next room," Mr. Skinner said suddenly, and I thought he meant the bedroom.
He pulled me into the bathroom and sat me down on the edge of the tub. I could hear him taking off his clothes. I blinked when he turned the light on-I hadn't been expecting it. He had everything off now except his shoes and socks. He looked so funny standing there with those black silk socks and polished black shoes and nothing else. His skin was ugly white, as if he'd never been to the beach in his whole life.
"Come on, show old Freddie you aren't afraid of him." He pulled me up to my feet and swung me around so my back was facing him and squeezed me tight.
I thought he'd turn the light off now for sure, but he stayed that way, both of us looking right into the mirror, and he acted like he wished he had four hands instead of just two. It was nuts, the way he kept staring into that full-length mirror, all the time busy.
"See, baby doll. You look every bit as good as any one of those sluts in Joe's scrapbook. See?"
"Do I, honest?" I asked him. He was paying me a compliment because the pictures we saw looked like showgirls or movie stars.
"Sure you do, honey." He squeezed me so tight I nearly lost my breath. "Only one difference. Those girls are all a bunch of tramps. Lana's a baby!" He swung me around then so we were face to face, and I was thinking, now hell turn off the lights. "Don't be scared, baby. I'm teaching you how to be happy. Don't you be scared one little bit."
"I won't," I promised, like I didn't know what was coming next.
He started walking me backwards through the door and into the dark bedroom and I was thinking it was like he had St. Vitus Dance in his hands. Then we were both lying on the bed and I remembered what Joe said about pretending I liked it and being scared, too. When he started making those funny noises, I did the same thing, and he nearly went crazy. When he swung himself over on his back and left me alone, I thought, thank goodness it's over now. But he had other ideas.
Back we went into the bathroom, with the light still on, and he started all over again, with me leaning back against him, and he was laughing at us there in the mirror. Then he sat down, right on the floor, and he made me sit down.
"On my lap, baby doll. We both are going to like that." He held up his hands to help me down the way he wanted. I was thinking, suppose the mirror wasn't all the way down to the floor, gee, but Mr. Skinner woulda been unhappy.
He wanted to see everything we were doing, and kept talking a blue streak all the time about how he was teaching me how to be happy. All I was thinking about was that I had to be back home a little after three or Mom would start getting ideas.
Me sitting on his lap wasn't working out the way he wanted, so he made me turn around so I was sitting with my face to him and he was stretched flat like a dead body in the morgue. Only, suddenly he wasn't dead no more, not the way his hands were digging into my waist.
"Come on, Lana baby," he kept saying over and over again. "Show me you like it. Come on, baby!"
I did like he said, digging my hands into his chest the way he was doing to me, and he was panting like he was on the last lap of a five mile race.
Soon as it was over, he was in a hurry to get outta the house.
"I have a three o'clock business appointment," he explained to me, dressing fast. Then he pinched me on the fanny. "You tell Joe he wasn't wrong one bit. I'll be seeing you again, Lana baby, when I hit New York the end of August."
He was satisfied! I could tell Joe we had our first regular client.
All the way home I wanted to sing I was so happy. Joe'd be proud of me. He wouldn't be sorry he picked me for his partner. I started imagining all kinds of wild things, like Joe and me dancing at the Copa and swimming at Atlantic City, and maybe during Christmas vacation, lying on the beach down at Miami. Joe said after a while the money'd be rolling in.
I got off the subway, walked home, climbed the stairs to our dinky old flat. I opened the door and Mom was standing there waiting.
"You no-good little bitch!" she shrieked. "I oughta break your neck!"
CHAPTER FIVE
I'd got home only a few minutes later than if I'd been coming from school, so how could Mom know where I was? I stood there, staring at her, a million nutty ideas chasing through my head.
"Okay, Rita, take the other two downstairs to play," Mom snapped out, awful mad, and that tight feeling inside nearly suffocated me.
"Want me to bring up anything from the store?" I asked as if I hadn't heard what she called me.
"Like what, for instance? A diamond ring or a wrist watch or a fur coat?"
"What you talking about, Mom?"
I was scared now, though I was trying not to let on. She musta followed me! That was it! I got the chills, thinking about this. If Mom knew where I was, she knew all about Joe. She could make trouble for him.
"For a punk fifteen-year-old you sure been making time while I was in the hospital. How long did you think you'd get away with it?"
"I don't know what you're talking about," I insisted. I never seen Mom so sore.
"All that money, that's what!" She reached inside her bra and pulled out the wad of bills. All the money I'd hid for my modeling course and to buy a phonograph. "Where'd you steal it? God knows, I ain't no angel, but I ain't no thief!"
"I didn't steal it!" I yelled, and then shut up.
Mom acted like she hadn't heard me. "No child of mine is gonna wind up in jail. Now, you're only a kid. So if you return the money and say you're sorry, they'll let you off, ten to one."
"Mom, I didn't steal it." In a way I felt better. At least I knew Mom hadn't found out about Joe. "I found it right out on the street." I was reaching around for something good to convince her. "I told Grandma it was five bucks, but it wasn't-it was over a hundred. I was saving it for something special for all of us." I was raving on like a screwball now but Mom was watching me as if maybe she was swallowing it. "Ask Grandma about the five bucks. That's where I got the doll carriage for Joanie and Grandma's geranium and the clothes for the baby."
Mom took a long look at that wad of bills, then she stuck 'em back into her bra. One thing, I wasn't gonna see that money again. "I hope you're tellin' me the truth, Lana. I don't want no thief for a daughter."
"It is the truth," I insisted, seeing she was ready to forget the whole idea. She liked the idea of all that dough in her bra. After this, I'd have to be smarter about where I hid my money.
"Go down for a few cans of beer, honey." Mom smiled as if we hadn't been having a battle ten seconds ago. "And maybe you could pick up a box of them chocolate cherries." She reached inside the grocery money can for a bill. She wasn't worrying about when it got empty this time, not with that extra hundred sitting so nice and comfortable.
After I finished shopping for Mom, I put on my slim jims and a blouse and started over for the candy store to phone Joe. I was supposed to call him around four o'clock to let him know how the client worked out. I called him, then he got my number and went downstairs to call me back.
"Flay it smart, baby," he said when we finally got to talk. "I don't want that switchboard gal listening in on our business. Now, tell me, how'd it go?"
"He liked it, Joe. He said he'd see me again in August."
"That means on his next trip in to buy." Joe sounded real satisfied.
"When will I see you, Joe?"
"Weekend I'm busy," he said. "Meet me Monday morning at the apartment."
"I can't. I have to go to school next week. It's the last week, though," I reminded him fast.
"I forgot. How soon can you come after school?" he asked me after thinking a minute.
"I don't know, Joe. I mean, I don't want to start Mom wondering." I was trying to figure out when I could get over Monday.
"Lana, we got work to do. I want you to meet this broad, Arline. The three of us can go buying some clothes for you and take you somewhere to have your hair styled. All that stuff we were talking about."
"What about Monday night?" I was getting desperate. Joe wasn't going to wait around for me-he was what Mom always called a fast operator.
"Say, that's okay." He sounded relieved. "The stores in my neighborhood are open nights."
"I'll tell Mom I'm going to the movies with Carmen. She's in a good mood right now." She oughta be, with my money practically spent in her mind, if I knew Mom.
"Good girl. I'll be home no later than five. Make it as close to then as you can."
"Joe-" Then I stopped, wondering if he'd think I was nuts for asking. "Joe, you're glad about Mr. Skinner, aren't you?"
"Baby, you're the greatest," he said, like Tony Curtis making love to Debbie Reynolds or Janet Leigh. "I'll show you how glad when I see you."
That was what I wanted to hear-to make sure Joe was happy about us being partners. And all weekend I'd keep thinking about how he'd show me how glad he was. He didn't have to draw pictures for me to know what he meant. I was getting excited right there in the phone booth just thinking about it.
Saturday I took the kids and went to the park for almost the whole day. I had to do what Joe said was "setting strategy." I came home from the park and told Mom about this woman I met who was crazy about Joanie, and how the woman had a little girl about a month older than Joanie. I made it up good. I even gave her a name. She was Mrs. Curtis and she lived in that fancy new apartment house some dope had built in a crummy neighborhood like ours. Only she was moving to Riverside Drive in a few days. That was so I'd be able to say later that I was going to baby-sit all the way up there. Mom wanted to know what Mrs. Curtis looked like and what kinda clothes she wore and I could see Mom wishing she lived on Riverside Drive and had nothing to do but sit in the park all day. Of course, Mom didn't do nothing in the house anyway-she coulda been sitting in the Park instead of reading confession magazines in the living room all day.
When I took Joanie over to the park again on Sunday, Mom asked about Mrs. Curtis and I told her how nuts she still was about the kid. Joanie was cute as a button-people were always stopping to talk to me about her. I told Mom Mrs. Curtis said maybe sometime I could baby-sit for her, since I was so good with Joanie. Mom looked pleased. She asked if I told her about Mark and him being the first boy in the family. Mom was so proud of the baby it was funny. He was the cutest little thing I ever laid eyes on, so I couldn't much blame her. I made up my mind when I got a lotta money I'd buy him a new carriage instead of that old thing sitting out in the hall that wasn't even new when Mom wheeled me in it.
Right after I came home from school on Monday I told Mom about going to the movies with Carmen. I just hoped Carmen didn't go passing by when Mom was sitting at the window. It was so hot now Mom spent half the day sitting by the window. She complained a bit about how this was a school night but not much. I told her Carmen had free passes again. Carmen went out once in a while with the assistant manager of the movie theatre.
I got to Joe's about six o'clock. He was sitting there with a bag from the delicatessen, eating his dinner.
"Good girl." He kissed me, and we both laughed when the mustard from his mouth got on mine. "We'll have time to get a few things done tonight. Hungry?"
"No." I sat down while he went back to his food. "Did you talk to Mr. Skinner?"
"No. I won't be seeing him again until his next trip." Joe was almost finished now, except for his soda. "He paid me out in the hall before he went back to you. You understand about the money this time, don't you, baby? We have to use it to set you up."
"Sure, Joe." How could he think I'd be such a pig? Wasn't he spending everything on me?
"You been working on the baby-sitting angle, like I told you to do?"
"Yeah, it's going over terrific." My eyes got shiny remembering how Mom had gone for it. "Course, when I start baby-sitting, Mom'll expect me to give part of the money home."
Joe got to his feet, tossed the paper bag into the waste-paper basket, and came over to me. "Honey-bun, you'll have money to show her. And you'll have plenty not to show her, huh, doll?" He grinned and squeezed my shoulders.
The doorbell rang and I jumped.
"That's Arline." Joe was real business-like now. "I told her to come about six." He walked over to let her in.
"Oh, brother, I'm dying!" Arline slammed into the room and collapsed on the sofa. "What a day! Hot as hell and I've been tied up with a client who's a candidate for Bellevue Psycho."
"Like Mr. John?" Joe laughed.
"First cousin," Arline said.
Now I remembered. Arline was the girl who was supposed to take care of Mr. John's showings, they'd told me at Adorable Lingerie, only she was out of town that day. Arline wasn't a girl exactly-not to me, anyhow. I'll bet she was almost as old as Mom, but she was gorgeous. Just looking at Arline, I could tell my clothes were terrible and my hair wasn't going to win any prizes. She was taller than me, but we had the same kinda shape. Her hair was red. I was sure it was dyed, but no guy would ever know it. She was sizing me up now.
"So this is the baby," Arline said, very friendly.
"Lana, meet Arline."
"Hi." I was trying to act as if I wasn't impressed with Arline, but I guess anybody could see I really was.
"What do you think?" Joe asked her, but looking me up and down.
"Possibilities are sensational." Arline sounded like the waitress in the luncheonette on 49th Street and she was inspecting me the same way. "Make-up's wrong, hair too cheap. Clothes ditto."
I blushed as if I was two years old, but I knew they meant it good.
"It's this way, Lana," Joe said, soft. "When you use make-up, use it like an artist-not a house painter."
"The hair has to go, natch." Arline was walking off and staring at me with her eyes half-closed. "That color's-good but the style's all wrong. No smartness, either. I know a guy who'll make her a living doll."
All of a sudden, something hit me and I nearly died on the spot. What was Mom gonna say when I walked in looking like a stranger? She'd know somebody'd made the change-and she'd figure it was some guy. Mom always said, until I was older I was taking orders from her, and I knew she wasn't having me going out with guys. She'd even have been sore about Chuck and he was nothing but a punk kid. But I'd worry about that later, I told myself. I shouldn't let on to Joe I might run into problems.
"How's the time situation?" Arline asked Joe. "Any definite appointments?"
"I'm taking it slow and easy. We have to set a few things so the kid's folks don't wise up. I have a date for Wednesday night. Good deal. But shell have to look smart. This boy won't want a floozy."
I could feel myself turning red again. Was that what I looked like to Joe? A floozy. I couldn't push it out of my mind, even when Arline pulled me into the bathroom to give me a lesson in making up the way they wanted, and some tips on how to handle myself. But if Joe thought I was a floozy, why was he bothering with me? Was it because he figured we could make a lot of money together? Maybe he didn't like me at all! All the time Arline kept yapping at me about how to do my lips and my eyes and about running make-up down my neck, part of my mind kept worrying about Joe, about him thinking I was nothing but a floozy.
"Well leave the hair for later," Arline decided after a while. "You put it up with a twist on top, like this, for now." She was flipping my hair around as if she was a hairdresser herself. "It'll do fine."
"I don't know if I can fix it myself. I mean, the way you did it." I was practically stuttering, I was so surprised at the way it looked.
"Show her how, Arline." Joe was leaning against the bathroom door watching. "Break it down-give the kid a chance." Then he looked at his watch. "But step on it. We have shopping to do yet."
We went into a store over on Broadway, around the corner from where Joe lived, and Arline picked out the wildest robe I'd ever seen. It was made out of a cream-colored satiny cloth, with a skirt as wide as Texas, and it was buttoned right up to the neck. I thought they'd find something like you see in the sexy magazines, made of that thin stuff you can see right through. It didn't look sexy to me but when I came out to model it for him, Joe whistled and the saleswoman giggled. Then Arline asked to see panties and bras. I was glad she picked out lace ones.
"That does it," Arline said, satisfied with how the panties and bras looked. "Get back into your clothes and we'll head for Joe's and have a dress rehearsal."
We went back to the house and Joe made a drink for Arline and him and poured me a gingerale.
"Say, kids, I'm a working girl," Arline cracked, grinning. "Get on with this dress rehearsal or I'll be losing money."
"Go on to work, sweetie, I'll take it from here." Joe took the glass from Arline and walked her to the door.
"Happy landing," Arline waved to me. "Call me the next shopping trip."
"You're hired." He was practically shoving her out the door and she sent him one of those wise looks.
"What about this Wednesday client?" I asked, feeling funny about using Joe's word for the guy.
"I'll tell you later. I want to see you in this outfit first. Here," he threw the package at me. "Go inside, put on the outfit, and then come back."
I kept looking at myself in the mirror, not believing this was me. The hairstyle was like nothing I'd ever seen except on television and the robe was straight from a Hollywood movie. It made me look lots taller and I was beginning to understand why Arline made Joe take this high-necked one instead of something thin and low-cut. It fit me so close around the top it was like I was gift-wrapped in satin.
I walked into the living room, dying to see Joe's eyes when he saw me got up this way. He stared up and down and he whistled. I remembered what he'd said before about the client not wanting a floozy. I guess I'd been remembering it all this time.
"Joe, did I look like a floozy before? Is that what you thought?"
"Honey, where'd you get an idea like that?" He lifted his eyebrows as if I'd said something nobody'd ever believe.
"You said this client wouldn't want a floozy." The more I thought about it, the more I was sure he'd meant it.
"Baby, you're my little diamond in the rough. All I'm trying to do is put you in the right setting. You heard about Ziegfeld? That's what he did-take babes like you and put 'em in a setting to knock the customers' eyes out."
"I know I'm not smart like Arline."
"Baby, you're young, Arline's thirty-four. You've got the edge on her before you even start to work. Now take off that robe," he ordered me. 'Take it off nice and slowly, starting with the top buttons."
I did it like he said, unbuttoning slowly and sort of moving around the room as I did it. Then I let the robe fall behind me onto the sofa where it couldn't get dirty. I sorta posed in front of the sofa in those tiny lacy panties and the bra and watched Joe's face.
He hopped to his feet and came over to put his arms around me. "Baby, you're terrific!"
"You mean it, Joe? You mean it?" I wanted to hear him say it over and over again.
"Sure I mean it." Then he reached over and shut me up good.
"Joe, be careful," I reminded him when he started to jerk at my bra straps. "These are my new clothes."
"Just a dress rehearsal, Lana. Show me what you're gonna give the customer."
But I knew when he pushed me down on the sofa that way, this wasn't no dress rehearsal. This was the real show. When Joe kissed me the way he was doing now, when all of him made love to all of me as if he'd never stop, Joe wasn't worried about if I was a floozy or not.
Afterwards, Joe walked me to the subway. He stopped at the newsstand at the corner and bought me Vogue and Harpers Bazaar and Charm. And he gave me keys to the apartment. My keys.
"I may not be able to be at the place Wednesday night-have to entertain a couple customers. You be here seven sharp. The guy's name is Jones." He grinned. "That's what you're supposed to think. When he rings the bell, let him in. Then ask him if he'd like a drink. Show him where the stuff is-he'll help himself." He rubbed his ear as if he was thinking hard. "I don't know much about him except he comes from the midwest. Not one of Solly's customers but he was recommended through one."
"What about the money?" I was trying hard to be business-like about everything now.
"He's sending me a check at the office. I'll phone to let you know it's okay."
"Will it be all right if I'm playing records when he comes?" I was awful nervous, thinking of being alone like that when he came.
"Swell, baby." Joe patted me on the shoulder. "Make it something nice and soft. This guy's a college professor."
"Okay," I promised, all of a sudden feeling funny. A college professor! Boy, that sure was a laugh. I was having a tough time pushing through high school! "Maybe you better leave out the right records," I giggled, feeling better now. "I don't know what kinda music a college professor goes for."
"Right. Now you better beat it," Joe said firmly, and then he stopped me as I started down the stairs. "Got carfare?"
"Sure."
"Here, keep this for mad money." He reached into his wallet and pulled out a five dollar bill. "Okay, scram."
I went on down the stairs still holding that five in my hand. I'd hide it good this time. I knew Mom wasn't going to swallow any more stuff about me finding dough-and if I wasn't gonna see any of the other, I'd sure hang on to this.
I started running through the magazines Joe gave me while I was waiting for the train and when it came and I got myself a seat. I didn't think it was a good idea to take magazines like these into the house. Mom might start wondering. I tore out four pictures of models with hairdos like mine and stuck 'em in my purse. I'd dump the magazines in the wastepaper basket on the street.
The train was stopping at my station so I got off, stopping to look at myself in one of those mirrors in the chewing gum machines. I'd have to take my hair down and fix it the way I always wore it. I was nervous standing there pulling out the pins and combing it with guys walking past and whistling. I made out I didn't see them. I put on more lipstick and pencilled my eyes heavier, the way I always did. Mom wouldn't notice a thing now.
When I walked up out of the subway, I bumped smack into Carmen. She was having an egg cream in front of the candy store.
"Hi." She was wondering where I'd been, I could tell.
"Hi." I figured I'd let her wonder some more. I went over to the counter and ordered a malted. While the guy was making it, I picked out three movie magazines to buy. When I plunked down that five dollar bill, Carmen's eyes popped.
"You an heiress or something?" She got that wise look on her face.
"I been baby-sitting uptown. Only don't tell Mom. I wanta keep the money for myself."
"Okay." But she was still watching me.
"If you see Mom," I went on, sort of desperate, afraid maybe I'd talked too much, "you tell her we went to the movies tonight. Okay?"
"Sure." She was through with her soda but she waited for me to finish mine. Then we both started to walk towards my house. "Chuck's sure sore at you," she said, real satisfied with herself.
"Mom'd kill me if she found out I did anything with him. That's why I ran out the other night," I said, and now I was relieved. Carmen figured I was scared to do anything-she'd never guess about my "clients". This time, I had the laugh on her.
"Too bad, Lana," Carmen smiled like a cat bathing in milk. "Chuck's terrific. He's got a friend who's loaning him a car so he can take me to the beach. Boy, I'll bet he's something in a pair of swimming trunks!"
"I gotta go now," I said when we reached our doorway. "Have fun at the beach."
Tuesday after school I took Joanie and baby Mark to the park. On the way home I bought Joanie and me malteds. I bought pops for Rita and Liz and Debbie. I dragged the three of 'em into the hall to eat the pops, then sent the kids back out on the sidewalk to play some more. I told 'em not to tell Mom about the ice cream.
I hid what was left of that five in my bra again. I was sleeping with it on till I could figure out some place to hide my money. I'd put Joe's keys in with my make-up but I was scared about the money. In a pinch I could always tell Mom the keys belonged to my locker at school.
While we were eating supper, I told Mom about Mrs. Curtis moving the next morning.
"Some women have all the breaks," Mom said. I could see she was busting with envy. "I'll bet she can't touch me for looks when I was ten years younger."
"She's sort of plain," I made up, knowing Mom would like that. "But awful sweet. She wants me to come and baby-sit for her tomorrow night. Her husband's taking her out to dinner and to the Music Hall for their anniversary. She says she'll even pay my carfare," I added quick.
"That's a long way for you to be traveling. If they're going out to dinner and the Music Hall you might be awful late coming home. That hour all kinds of bums ride the trains."
"She promised they'd be back no later than eleven or eleven-thirty," I lied fast, "and her husband's gonna walk me to the train. He has to walk the dog anyhow." I was making it sound so good Mom was interested.
"They got a dog? One of them French poodles?"
"Yeah. He's the cutest thing you ever saw. She had him in the park today."
"Okay," Mom settled it. "But make sure you come straight home afterwards." She looked at me, thoughtful-like. "And you keep half the money for yourself, Lana baby. So you can buy something pretty to wear."
I was sure glad this was the last day of school and I didn't have to do any thinking about lessons because all I had on my mind was tonight and "entertaining" that college professor. I remembered where Joe kept the scrapbook, so I could start off asking him to have a drink and then showing him the scrapbook. I wouldn't have to worry about anything after that.
When we finished supper, I threw the dishes in the sink and started Rita on them. I put Joanie to bed and argued with Liz and Debbie to go but they yelled like Indians so Mom said they could watch television a while and then Rita would put them to bed. I set the alarm so Mom would remember Mark's bottle. When she was reading or watching TV, she forgot all about everything else she was supposed to do.
"I better be going," I said, hoping Mom wouldn't put up a fuss because it wasn't even six o'clock yet.
"So early?" She frowned a little. "You told me you don't have to show up till seven."
"I don't know where it is exactly. I wanta have plenty of time to find the address. She told it's on Riverside near 77th, I think. I don't want to come late because I have trouble finding the place."
"I don't know how you can miss Riverside Drive and 77th Street but go on if you're so set on it. Make sure that Mr. Curtis walks you to the subway."
"Okay, Mom," I reached for my purse, went over to kiss Mark, and beat it.
I had this crazy feeling when I went out of the house like, suppose Mom gets suspicious and follows me? Suppose she walks in on me entertaining the client? I'd about drop dead right on the spot!
CHAPTER SIX
I was so nervous it took me forever to get the front door unlocked and then I had the same trouble all over again with the upstairs door. The apartment looked sensational. Joe had cleaned the place nice, and put away everything in the kitchenette and closed the doors to it. He'd left on a couple lamps, so everything was in a sort of pretty glow.
I went on into the bathroom to do my hair and put on some fresh make-up the way Arline showed me. I was keeping my fingers crossed I'd get it right. I had the hair done so it was pretty good and was starting on the make-up when the phone rang. I was sure it was Joe.
"Hello."
"Lana, everything okay?" Joe sounded anxious.
"Yeah. I'm dressing now. It's plenty early."
"Sure. Wish I could come over but I'm carting these two slobs around for the evening. Big customers of Solly's. Now remember, take it nice and easy. Don't worry about a thing. And Lana-" he was quiet for a minute.
"Whatever this bird wants, you go ahead. Even if it is something new to you. Whatever he wants, it's okay. A messenger boy just came over with the check. It's fifty bucks." Joe was satisfied, I could tell.
"Joe," I had to remind him, "I gotta get out of here by eleven-thirty. How can I fix it with him?"
"I told him already. Eleven sharp, out he goes. Be sweet to the client, baby. Pour it on good. And call me tomorrow around noon at the office." Then he hung up.
When Mr. Jones didn't show up by seven o'clock, I started to wonder maybe he wasn't coming. Maybe he lost the address or just decided he wasn't interested. Would he make Joe give him back the money? Joe said we needed lots of money so he could buy me a whole wardrobe. I couldn't take none of it home but it'd be sensational to wear those clothes even just here in the apartment and if a client wanted to go out with me somewhere first I could really show them off. Joe said it might be that way sometimes. Me, nightclubbing! Boy, that'd be terrific!
It was nearly seven-thirty when the doorbell rang. I hurried over for a fast look in the mirror first, then went to answer it. I was waiting with the door open when he puffed up those two flights of stairs.
"Miss Lana?" He smiled as if he was crazy about what he saw. I didn't need him to tell me. I was a knockout in that cream-colored satin robe with my hair all piled up this way.
"Yes." I smiled. "Please come in." Joe'd gone over this bit with me, thank goodness, so I was sure he was getting a swell impression.
"That'll be a pleasure." He walked in and I closed the door and put on the chain the way Joe did.
"Would you like a drink?" I pointed over to the cabinet and he walked right over to help himself.
"Nothing I'd like better." He was whistling while he fixed himself a drink, then he remembered me. "What can I fix you, young Venus?"
"Nothing," I said, then remembered to add, "thank you."
I went over and sat on the sofa, sort of leaning back against one corner, the way I seen Brigitte Bardot do a couple times in movies. So this guy was a college professor. That was what he looked like, I decided, or maybe a famous explorer or a writer. He had a tiny beard way down on his chin and his hair was cut real close. He wasn't exactly old but he wasn't young neither. He swigged down a drink fast, then he poured himself another and brought it over with him.
"My name's Jones," he said, "but you call me Edgar. All right?" He smiled and his teeth were white and even, like in magazine ads. He smelled of shaving lotion but it was nice.
"All right, Edgar." Then I got up and started for the chest of drawers where Joe told me he'd put the scrap-book. "Would you like to see Joe's scrapbook?"
He smiled as if he had heard a joke all by himself. "That'll do for now."
I went over for the scrapbook and I could feel him eye-undressing me. Slow and easy. I came back and sat next to him with the scrapbook and opened it.
"Everyone has his own choice in art," Edgar said, looking closely at the first couple pages. Then he slammed the book closed. "This type of thing may stimulate the ordinary man on the street but I prefer other means." He took the glass and swallowed down his drink. "It's awfully warm in here, don't you think?"
"Yes," I agreed, wondering why men have to make excuses to start taking off their clothes.
"Then you won't object if I remove my jacket-and other things?" He lifted one eyebrow as he got up and took off his jacket. He sure talked peculiar! "Now, we can't have you over-dressed, can we?" He reached out with one hand like I was a duchess and he was asking me to dance. That reminded me about the music. I was so nervous before I forgot.
"Would you like some music?"
"Delightful," he beamed. "But let me choose."
He went over and went through the pile of records Joe left sitting there by the phonograph and finally he made up his mind what he wanted to play.
"That's by Jerome Kern," he told me when the music started. "A man with a soul for love." He held out his arms and we started to dance. Then he stopped dead. "We forgot about your being over-dressed, Venus."
He started with the top button and opened every one, all the way down to the hem. Then, without even bothering to take it off, he started to kiss me, right from my instep straight up my leg and thigh. Then he stretched out on the floor and laughed.
"What's the matter?" I was scared.
"The beauty of the human body," he said. "It's so tremendous it takes my breath away." Then he jumped to his feet and took off the robe. "Lovely. Absolutely exquisite. The most delicious delicacy a man of taste could demand." He undid the bra and tossed it on the sofa. Then he was sliding the panties down and his mouth was kissing me, from my neck right on down. It made me feel funny, having him kiss me like that. Then he stood up and took off the rest of his clothes, even his shoes and socks. "Here we are, Adam and Eve, Aphrodite and Ares." I didn't even know what he was talking about. "Aphrodite was the Greek goddess of love and beauty, and Ares was her lover," he explained.
"It sounds awful pretty," I said, standing like a dumb statue while he flopped onto a chair, crossed his legs and just watched me. Then he got up and went over to his jacket and fished out a pipe and a tobacco pouch. I nearly started to giggle.
"I sometimes have a rough time convincing my students that it might have been an interesting era. They harbor a peculiar belief that the dead languages should remain dead."
"Is that what you teach?" I asked. "Dead languages?" Wasn't that Latin or something, I tried to remember. "That's it, Aphrodite."
He kept on puffing at that pipe, his eyes eating me up. He might keep this up for an hour, so I figured I might as well sit down. It's a nutty feeling, sitting with no clothes on and just talking.
"It's awfully warm," he said again and got rid of the pipe. "Why don't the two of us go inside and take a shower?"
"Okay." I got up, too. Joe said, anything he wanted. We walked into the bathroom and I flipped on the light. He went right over and turned on the shower, fixing it so it slanted. "Wouldn't want to ruin that lovely coiffeur," he said and sort of bowed. "Now," he was satisfied with the water, "climb in, Aphrodite."
I stepped over into the shower and he came right in with me. He took the soap and started to soap himself down, talking all the time about how wonderful it felt to be under clean, cool water. Then he started soaping me. This was the screwiest thing! It was a good thing Joe's phonograph was automatic because the Jerome Kern record was starting all over again now. There we were, with "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes" playing out there and Edgar getting soap in my eyes under the shower. He wasn't missing a single spot either. Then he pulled me right against him and we let the water roll over us until all the soap was gone and only the sweet perfume in it stayed. He helped me out of the shower, as if I was somebody important and famous, and he patted me dry with the big turquoise towel hanging over the rod. It was the biggest towel I'd ever seen, like a blanket almost. Then he had me dry him. Every now and then he'd let out a sort of moan, like it felt wonderful.
"Now, Aphrodite," he said when I was through with the towel, 'let's retire to the lovers' bed."
First, though, he bent down and slid my feet into my sandals. He threw the towel over the shower rod and walked me into the bedroom. He turned on the lamp by the bed and told me to sit down. He sat down next to me and started to talk some more, all lands of nutty stuff about love being the gift of the gods and how most people didn't know what to do with it. He kissed me on the mouth, first soft, then so hard I was worried my lips would be swollen later.
"Now, Lana, that's lesson one. The primitive man's understanding of love. The adolescent's growing awakening. Next comes lesson two." He slid my legs onto the bed and lay down beside me. "This is the elemental approach. The love that insures the continuation of the race. Love as practiced under the blankets of the unlearned and unblessed."
He stopped talking now. I thought about "elemental approach" and decided it was like elementary school-the beginning. This was almost like being with Joe, the way he was making me like it and wanting to hold him tight and help. When I sort of cried out, he whispered, "Sssh ... Save that for later, baby. Make me earn it!" Like I said, he was a real nut.
He kept on talking about the advanced lessons, and showing me what he meant. And all the time he was explaining about the ancient Romans and Greeks and how their acts of love were as highly bred as their civilization. He was explaining about "the orifices of the body" and showing "how they serve the acts of love". He was showing me so much I was nearly crazy myself. I felt queer too, sort of ashamed, like some things belong to yourself.
I was glad when he finally got up and said he was going in to shower and dress. I was so tired and mixed up I couldn't move. Then I looked at the clock Joe kept on the table and I jumped up like somebody stuck a knife under me. It was going on twelve!
Not until "Mr. Jones" was gone and I was locking up the apartment did it hit me. I had another problem besides it being so late. I didn't have any money to take home for my baby-sitting! Joe'd forgot about this, same as me. Even though it was almost midnight, it wouldn't be no use trying to wait around for Joe. He told me sometimes when he was dragging customers around town he didn't land home till five or six in the morning. I'd told Mom I'd be home by midnight easy, but with trains running slow the way they did this late, I'd be lucky to walk in by one. I hadn't ever stayed out this late before, except once when I went to a dance, and that time Mom didn't stop hollering for three days.
All the way to the subway, then sitting there on the train pretending I didn't know the two fresh punks across the way were doing everything to make me look at them, I kept worrying about how late it was and hoping Mom would be asleep so I could lie about it tomorrow morning. And what was I gonna tell her about my pay? I couldn't see no way out, except to say we'd all forgot and I'd go back for it tomorrow. I knew Mom would be hopping mad.
I let myself in as quiet as I could. I got my baby dolls from under my pillow and put them on in the kitchen. It was hot and sticky and Grandma wasn't sleeping too good.
"Lana?" Grandma sat up on her cot.
"Yeah, go back to sleep," I whispered, scared she'd wake Mom.
"What time is it?"
"Eleven thirty, maybe a few minutes later. I been babysitting." I went over to the refrigerator and got her a glass of cold water. "Have some cold water, Grandma," I whispered and handed her the glass. That'd shut her up for sure.
I crawled onto my side of the studio couch, moving as little as I could. Thank goodness Mom sleeps like a horse.
"What time you get home last night?" Mom asked when we were sitting at the table having breakfast.
"About eleven-thirty," I said, dreading her next question.
"How much she pay you?" Mom threw off her housecoat and sat there in her nightie, it was so hot already.
I made like I was horrified. "Mom, I came home without getting paid! She said it'd be a dollar an hour plus carfare but we got to talking so much-"
"What you handing me?" Mom busted in before I could finish. "You been baby-sitting and you forgot to collect! Don't give me that. What guy you been messing around with behind my back?"
"Nobody, Mom, I swear! I was baby-sitting for Mrs. Curtis, like I said."
"What's her phone number? Call her up and tell her about your money." Mom was watching me close, awful suspicious.
"I don't know her number. And it's unlisted." I remembered Joe saying he had a unlisted number. "But I'll go over for the money, Mom. She'll give it to me."
"You mean you'll go back to that bum you been foolin' with and say you gotta have four bucks to shut up your old lady. You don't go near him, you hear me?
"There ain't no guy," I yelled.
"There ain't no more baby-sittin', either," Mom yelled back. "You don't play them games with me."
"She wants me to baby-sit regular." I was nearly crying now. "I gotta go get the money."
If Mom put her foot down on this, I was through with Joe. I'd never see him again and I wouldn't have closets-ful of clothes and money to burn, the way he promised.
"If there is any Mrs. Curtis, let her reach you," Mom screeched, nearly waking up the baby.
"How can she? We don't have no phone," I reminded, mad enough to throw something at Mom.
"She can find a way," Mom insisted. "Until she does, you ain't goin' anywhere except to the grocery store shoppin' for me. And did you hear about your fine friend Carmen?"
"What?" I looked at her sharp, wondering if Carmen spilled about me not going to the movies with her Monday night.
"They had her down at the police station two hours last night, that's what. She got herself mixed up with some dumb kid who stole a car."
"What's his name?" I asked her. Mom knew every scrap of gossip in the neighborhood.
"Chuck something or other. From now on, Lana, you keep away from that Carmen. I don't want to be dragging you out of police stations."
After a while I said, "I'll take Joanie and the baby over to the park." Mrs. Weinberg two floors down had taken the girls with her own kids to the beach for the day. She was nice that way last summer, too. "You want me to bring up something from the store?"
"Yeah." Mom went over to the coffee tin for money. "We need milk again. And buy some cheese so we can have sandwiches and ice tea for supper. It's too hot to bother with the stove."
I musta tried to get Joe on the phone a dozen times before I reached him. He sounded sore.
"Stay in the booth where you are," he snapped at me. I just about died. He'd never talked to me so mad before. "I'll call you back from downstairs."
I sat in the phone booth, wiping away the perspiration, wishing I'd put on my short shorts insteada hot slim jims, but I was afraid Mom would say something. Every once in a while she got on her high horse about me wearing short shorts in the street. I don't know why. Slim jims are lots more sexy when you got a fanny and legs like mine. At least, that's what Carmen always said. The phone rang and I jumped to answer it.
"Hello."
"What's the idea calling me so much at the office?" Joe yelled. "The girl at the switchboard was giving me the business about the broad who was panting to catch up with me."
"I'm sorry, Joe, honest. But I didn't know what to do. Mom's flipping her lid. We forgot about me having to bring home money for my baby-sitting. I didn't have none."
"Oh, hell," Joe said under his breath, then louder, "Oh, hell!"
"She don't believe there is any Mrs. Curtis." I couldn't keep quiet anymore. "Joe, she won't let me out to babysit until Mrs. Curtis calls me. She wanted me to give her a phone number, so I said I didn't know it and it was unlisted."
"That much was good. You used your head." He was quiet, and I knew he was trying to figure out an angle. "Look, Mrs. Curtis will call you."
"How? We don't have a phone." I told Joe that before.
"What about in the hall?"
"No hall phone, either. We always run down to the candy store to make calls."
"Would they call you to the phone if a call came in for you?" Joe wanted to know.
"Not a chance. Who's got time in a candy store to be bothered?"
"Wait, I got it." Joe sounded less upset. "If anybody asks the operator for a phone at that address, they'll give him somebody's number. Let's say Mrs. Curtis does that. Who's a neighbor you're friendly with?"
"Joe," I busted out, desperate, "you know there ain't no Mrs. Curtis."
"There will be today." I could see Joe grinning the way he does when he hits on a good idea. "Arline's due in here around lunch time. I'll have her pull the deal. Who's a family in the house to call? We can say that just happened to be the number the operator gave."
"Mrs. Rafferty," I said. "Mom's real friendly with her most of the time and Rita's always running in and out of there to play with the Rafferty kids."
"Okay, Rafferty gets the call. If your old lady wants to go to the phone instead of you, don't put up a fuss. It'll be good that way. Then she'll know there's a Mrs. Curtis. In fact," Joe decided, "you make sure your mother takes the call. I'll have Arline on the phone between one and one-thirty. You make sure you can't go to the phone. Be in the shower or downstairs somewhere. "Let Arline take on the old girl."
"You're sensational!" I was nearly bawling with joy. "Mom'll lap it up. Oh, and Joe, tell Mrs. Curtis to ask Mom about Joanie and Mark. She's supposed to know them."
"Check," Joe said softly. "And don't forget, you're my baby."
"Yeah, Joe, I won't ever forget!"
I was popping with happiness. I was Joe's baby!
When it was almost one o'clock, I decided to go downstairs to buy Mom and me ices. Joanie and Mark were both asleep and Mom was watching TV. Mom was pretty good about me taking money for ices or a soda when it was hot like this.
"Go on over and pick up a coupla beers and a bottle pop for yourself at the same time," Mom decided, good-natured again. "We owe ourselves some treats." I knew she meant that extra dough she took from me.
I took my time coming back, making sure it was one-thirty when I started up the stairs again. The minute I opened the door to the apartment, I knew Arline had been talking to Mom.
"Come on in and cool off," Mom said with that satisfied smile about her lips. She'd put glasses on the table with ice cubes and she had the bottle opener there.
"Okay." I put the ices down on saucers so they wouldn't drip all over the table, then opened a can of beer for Mom and the soda pop for me.
"You had a phone call while you was out, Lana baby."
"Who?" I acted as if I was surprised to death. "Where'd they call, anyhow?"
"She got the number from the operator for somebody in this building. It just happened it was Rafferty's, ain't that a scream? So Mrs. Rafferty came over and knocked. It was that Mrs. Curtis on the phone. She said her husband and her was so excited about their anniversary and moving into the new flat and all, they forgot to pay you. And she asked if you could come sit tonight, too, since you had to make the trip anyway. They want to go out to a movie. She said she was so pooped from trying to straighten up after the moving she figured it'd relax her. They'll be home not much later than eleven, she promised."
"Okay." Mom meant I could go. And Joe had a client for tonight, I understood plain enough. "What time do I have to be there?"
"She said seven would be okay." Mom smiled, thinking about the phone call. "She sounded mighty nice. Asked about Joanie and Mark. Not stuck up or anything."
"She's terrific," I said. "She told me last night she was gonna have some things for Joanie, once she gets settled from the moving. Clothes she bought and her little girl outgrowed before she could even wear 'em. Joanie's littler than her kid."
"You be good while you're sitting for her," Mom warned me. "Don't make a mess eating in front of the television or leave dirty dishes in the sink."
"I won't, Mom," I promised, tickled to death everything was working out so swell. "I'll even tell her to leave the supper dishes and I'll do 'em for her."
I got to the apartment a little before seven. I rang the bell insteada using my key, in case Joe was home. He opened the door for me right away.
"Everything okay?" he asked me first thing.
"Like a doll," I said, beaming. I felt terrific-Joe wasn't mad at me no more.
"You're my doll." He pulled me tight for a minute, then went over for a drink. "I have this client coming in at eight. You won't have any trouble with him. He's a routine guy who thinks he's hot stuff. So you keep on telling him how wonderful he is, see? Afterwards, tell him how you hope he'll be back in town soon because with him business is a pleasure. And make sure he's out of here by nine-thirty."
"Why?" Was Joe wondering about me getting home? Or was he coming back? I smiled hopefully. "You mean you'll be coming home near nine-thirty?"
"Second shift, baby." Joe put down his glass and came over to hold me. "Ten o'clock Mr. Abels' brother-in-law is coming. Only Mr. Abels don't know it, and Mr. Smith don't know it, so it wouldn't do for them to meet in the hall or down at the door. Mr. Smith is a phony name, natch," Joe grinned, "but it makes the big boy feel safe. Now, I'm leaving the clock where you can't miss it. You tell him at nine-thirty-if he's still hanging around-that you're sorry but you have to go out on business. Hell catch on." Joe fished out his wallet and handed me a ten dollar bill. "This oughta make your old lady happy, hunh?"
"Sure." I took it and went over to my purse. "Mom'd break my neck if I showed up broke again tonight."
"Saturday afternoon, tell your mother you made a date to go someplace with a girlfriend. You and me and Arline are going to spend some of this money on an outfit for you, baby. Saturday night I got a client who's itching to take you to the Latin Quarter."
"You're kidding!" I nearly died with excitement. "You're making it all up."
"It's the McCoy. The guy's looking to have a real evening on the town." Joe frowned for a minute. "This brings up a problem though. You'll have to fix it so you're supposed to sleep over at Mrs. Curtis' joint. Can you swing it without starting an uproar again?"
Staying overnight was something I hadn't figured on. There was a good chance Mom'd go on the warpath. Joe could see how I was worrying.
"Why don't you explain that Mr. and Mrs. Curtis are going nightclubing and she thought it'd be better for you to sleep over and go home Sunday morning instead of taking the subway all alone late at night?"
"Yeah, I guess it'll be okay," I said, not sure but wanting Joe to think I was. "I can buy a dress and a coupla sunsuits for Joanie and say Mrs. Curtis sent 'em. I can spend a few bucks on that, can't I?"
"Sure, kid, we'll shop for them Saturday afternoon. You're going to the hairdresser's, too. Tell your mother Mrs. Curtis used to be a beautician." Joe laughed. "Boy, this Mrs. Curtis is some dame. I'd sure like to meet her."
"What do I wear for Mr. Abels and Mr. Smith? The robe outfit?" I asked.
"That's right." He sat on the sofa and pulled me down beside him. "And as long as you're going to change that make-up job, it won't hurt if I mess it up a little."
Joe swore when the telephone rang and I coulda flung the lamp on the bedside table right through the window I was so sore. Joe got off the bed and went inside to answer it, not even bothering to put on his clothes. Then he came right back inside and started to dress.
"Who was it?"
"A lousy wrong number," he told me and laughed. "Just as well, too. We don't want Mr. Abels arriving in the middle of a dress rehearsal. He wouldn't appreciate that at all."
I went inside to get ready, remembering everything Arline had taught me. By the time I was set, Joe was ready to leave. Five minutes later, Mr. Abels rang the doorbell. Opening the door for him, I was thinking how glad I was Joe always fixed it so the clients paid him insteada me. It felt nicer that way.
Mr. Abels was a short, fat character who kept telling me about how much he liked New York and all the money his wife was throwing away in the stores. He even showed me pictures of his grandsons. Then he marched over to the windows to make sure every blind was all the way down. He jerked at the chain on the door to make sure that was okay. Then he turned out every lamp in the place.
Once the joint was pitch black, he didn't waste another second. And all the while he was making time, he kept telling me these dirty jokes. He musta known every dirty word that was ever made up. Some of 'em I never even heard before. I laughed like he was the funniest guy I ever met, and I kept telling him how wonderful he was, like Joe said to do.
When he got up and dressed again, I looked at the clock. It wasn't even nine. This was going swell. He said good-bye sort of shamed-faced, like he was afraid his wife might be hiding out in the hall somewhere, then he beat it quick.
I picked up Joe's copy of Playboy and started to look at the pictures. Mr. Smith wouldn't be here till ten. After a while I thought about all that liquor over in the cabinet. If I was going out to the Latin Quarter Saturday night, I oughta know how to drink. I went over and poured some Scotch into a glass, the way Joe did, then I found the soda in the refrigerator. I sipped it slow, as if it was a malted, wondering what was so great about this stuff. It tasted bitter until I poured in more soda. After that it went down okay. I was feeling sort of warm inside and like my head was off somewhere away from the rest of me.
The doorbell rang after a while and I went over to let Mr. Smith into the apartment. It was crazy how the liquor made me feel, as if I was watching somebody else in my body. But Mr. Smith didn't notice a thing. How could he when, before he even got the door closed good, he started throwing off his clothes!
He was a character too. He kept telling me how he never paid for it before but he didn't know nobody in New York and a guy like him had to have it. And I gave him the crap about a guy good-looking as him could find plenty girls who'd go nuts for him. Yeah, maybe twenty years ago, I was thinking. Why couldn't he stop knocking himself out this way and admit he was an old guy now?
I was glad when I got Mr. Smith out of the place, so I could get ready for home. This time I wasn't having no problems with Mom. I had ten bucks in my purse. I figured Mom would let me keep five for myself. I'd see if I could find a crazy bathing suit for five bucks. I hadn't even been to the beach once so far this year. Sitting on the train, I started to daydream about how Joe would take me to the beach and afterwards we'd go somewhere for dinner and we'd dance and everybody'd stop to watch and they'd ask, "Who's the sensational couple?"
All of a sudden I looked up at the station. It was mine! I ran quick to make it before the doors closed. I wanted to be home early tonight, so Mom wouldn't start up again. And then, suddenly, everything came back to me, hitting me like a ton of bricks! I had to set it up so Mom would let me "stay over" with Mrs. Curtis Saturday night. How could I go on as if everything was okay? I guess it was the Scotch making me forget like a jerk. I promised Joe I could fix it but I sure as hell didn't know how. The more I thought about it, the more I got scared about the whole deal.
Was Mom going to play ball or would she cause trouble for Joe and me? Would this just make her even more suspicious all over again? I chewed at my fingernails, worrying.
CHAPTER SEVEN
I nearly fell on my face when I saw Mom still sitting up when I got home. The couch was all made up for the night but Mom had propped herself up on pillows and there she was reading.
"It's so hot I couldn't sleep," she told me before I could say a thing. "Bring in a couple bottles of pop so we can cool off."
"Okay." I went into the kitchen for the sodas, then came back. "Mrs. Curtis gave me ten bucks for the two nights," I said, watching to see how Mom took it.
"Not bad for a kid like you. You can buy yourself something nice tomorrow for five bucks." She was waiting for me to hand it over.
I went over to the coffee tin and took out a five, then I put in the ten. That way I gave Mom five and kept five for myself.
"What you gonna buy?" Mom asked, all interested.
"A bathing suit, maybe." Then I got an idea. "I saw one of the girls from school when I was coming home. She said she's going shopping on Fourteenth Street tomorrow. Maybe it'd be fun to go shopping with her."
"Yeah, that sounds nice," Mom agreed right off. "You take your time going through the stores, too. Most of 'em are nice and air-conditioned."
"Oh, I forgot to tell you," I pretended to remember suddenly. "Mrs. Curtis told me to come over Saturday night. They're going to see a Broadway show and then to some nightclub. Mr. Curtis has to entertain a customer." I kept building it up, remembering things I heard Joe say about customers and Adorable Lingerie.
Mom got that funny look in her eyes. "Going out to nightclubs, they won't be gettin' home till three or four in the morning."
"That's what Mrs. Curtis said, so she figured it'd be better for me to sleep over and then come home on Sunday morning. She said to talk to you about it. She'll pay me for right up to the time they come home, same as always. Then I can sleep on the couch in the baby's room till whatever time I wake up, have breakfast with them, and come on home."
Mom got that fascinated gleam in her eye, as if she was watching a TV show about people in a penthouse apartment or on a yacht somewhere. "They got a swell apartment, I'll bet, hunh?"
"Yeah, it's sure something. About seven or eight rooms and the kinda furniture you see in the movies. They must be awful rich." I was waiting. Mom hadn't said "yes" yet-but she hadn't said "no", either.
"You're young to be sleeping away from home, and with people I never even seen, honey. I don't know."
"Aw, Mom, you talked to Mrs. Curtis. She's a living doll. And when am I ever gonna get a chance to stay overnight in a place like that? I wonder what they have for Sunday breakfast? Everything fancy, I bet."
"Okay," Mom said finally, after I musta lost ten pounds worrying about it. "But you make sure you come home right after breakfast."
"I'd better go straight on up there from shopping, don't you think? I can have a sandwich and a drink at their house. She's always got a loaded refrigerator." I was going hogwild on this "Mrs. Curtis" deal. So what? It was working, wasn't it?
"Yeah, that's right. No use rushin' back home just to eat. I'll put the kids to bed."
Boy, Mom musta been impressed with Mrs. Curtis, offering to put the kids to bed! I'd forgot all about that angle.
I got to Joe's about two o'clock on Saturday. I wasn't inside the door good when Joe was shoving me out of the place again.
"We have a date to pick up Arline right away," he explained while we went down the stairs. "She's taking you to this hairdresser she knows."
"Does Arline live near here?" I was wishing Joe hadn't gone rushing out right away.
"Across town. Well take a cab. This gal Arline makes out great," Joe said, holding the door open for me. "We do as well as she does, you'll be a mighty happy little gal."
"Will you be happy, Joe?" I was hanging on to his arm, thinking what a gorgeous hunk of man he was.
"Sure, baby." He smiled, but I could see his mind was off on Cloud Nine. He stopped walking when we reached the corner and signaled for a cab.
Arline lived all the way across town in a big apartment house right near Park Avenue. They had a doorman and carpets in the lobby, and I felt like I oughta whisper because everything was so quiet. I guess Joe knew what he was talking about when he told me Arline made out great.
"Hi ya, kids!" Arline opened the door wearing nothing but a bra and panties. I had to admit it. She was gorgeous. "The lousy air-conditioning's on the bum so I'm making myself comfortable."
"On you it looks good," Joe said. But he wasn't giving her that "Oh, you sexy doll!" stare I always got.
"I'll fall into a dress and we'll shove off. Help yourself at the bar." She went chasing off through a door.
Joe got busy with bottles and glasses and ice cubes. "Straight gingerale for you, Baby." I made a face but he just laughed.
All I could do was keep staring around at everything. I never guessed Arline lived in something sensational like this. The living room was as big as our whole flat and she had sofas and couches all over the place. Paintings on the walls, like you see in museums, and a rug covering every inch of the floor. The hi-fi set musta cost more than Mom got from the Welfare for a whole year.
"Like it?" Joe stuck the glass of gingerale under my nose.
"It's terrific," I admitted.
"A few months from now you'll have the same thing," Joe promised without blinking an eyelash. "You do what Joe says, and it's yours."
He took me by the arm and walked me over to the sofa. "About tonight, Lana. This guy's making the rounds of the nightclubs. He's dying to be seen with somebody gorgeous-looking, so you have to be your best, baby. You don't have to talk much-he'll take care of that department. The less you say the better. And when he decides to take you home, he'll expect you to ask him up for a nightcap. Got that straight?"
"I'm supposed to say, how about coming up for a nightcap?" I said.
"Put it like this, honey. 'Wouldn't you like to come up for a nightcap, sweetie?'"
I repeated what he said as if I was learning lines for a movie. This was almost like being an actress.
"Now, when he goes into action, close your eyes and pretend it's Joe, baby. Give him all your little tricks, the way you do with me. I told you before, what you got, every guy's crazy to have."
"Okay, Joe." Then I giggled. "I hope I don't get plastered. Going to nightclubs, I'll have to be drinking with the guy."
"You take it easy, baby. Nurse one drink to four or five of his. That way you'll be okay."
"Ready?" Arline popped through the door, dressed as if we were going to cocktails at the Stork Club.
Joe lifted one eyebrow at Arline. "First stop, where?"
"The hairdresser's. I'll give you the address in the cab."
I never in my life spent an afternoon like this one. Arline took me in to the head man at the hairdresser's while Joe plopped into a chair outside to wait for us. It was wild. There was this nutty French guy who was arguing with Arline about my hair and a girl was giving me a manicure at the same time and somebody else was talking about the best line for my eyebrows. All I could think of was, holy cow, Mom'll drop dead when she sees me!
When we finally got through at the beauty parlor, I just about recognized me in the mirror. Joe grinned as if he'd just won the daily double.
"Time's short. Let's get on with the shopping." Joe took Arline and me each by the arm and started out.
Arline knew a little shop on Fifty-seventh Street, and she took us there. I wished I was wearing something nice even to walk into this place. I was learning the difference between what Jpe called smart clothes and lousy ones. What I used to like was lousy.
Joe and Arline finally made up their minds. They bought this black net cocktail dress that was cut as low in front as the law allows and with me, that was stretching it some. It was cut down in the back, too, and I was glad I hadn't been to the beach and was still so white.
"Baby, with that coal-black hair of yours in that fancy French twist and that show-stopping dress, you'll hold up traffic!" Joe laughed.
"We need some costume jewelry," Arline interrupted, and told the saleswoman to show us what they had.
I went wild over a rhinestone necklace but Arline shook her head firmly. She picked up a choker of pearls and tried them on me.
"That does it," she decided, satisfied, and Joe nodded.
But Arline let him buy a bunch of bracelets I liked for me to wear on one arm. Then they picked out this nightie and negligee set that was so thin you could see right through both of them. Joe said it was like something out of a French movie. Then, while Arline went over to look at slippers, Joe explained that when I brought the client up for a nightcap I should say, "Will you excuse me, honey, while I get into something comfortable?" That negligee was sure to be comfortable on a hot night.
When Joe took out his wallet to pay for everything, I practically died on the spot. He kept forking over twenty dollar bills the way I'd toss over pennies. I could see how important tonight must be for us.
Arline had to run to keep an appointment, so Joe took me to eat in some Italian place near his house. I'm nuts about Italian food and this was, like Joe said, the greatest. I didn't have to be ready for Frank, which was what I was supposed to call this client, until ten. But Joe made sure we were up at the apartment by nine o'clock. He helped me get dressed so I wouldn't louse up my hairdo and it was like having a male ladies maid. Once I thought he was going to forget all about helping me get dressed. But then he took his hands off and started lecturing me about how I was supposed to behave. He said Frank would want to stay all night and anything went. If he wanted to send out for liquor or food, I was to go ahead and give him the phone numbers Joe wrote out on the telephone pad. "Call me before you leave tomorrow."
"Where?" All of a sudden I wondered, where was Joe staying tonight?
"I'll be at this hotel." He reached for a pencil to write down the name. "You can get the number from the operator. Just call and ask for Joe Evans." Then he bust out laughing. "Boy, this is a scream, Joe Evans locking himself out of his own apartment. Only for a client like Frank, doll-face. This guy likes you, he might come across with a tip, too." He kissed me on the back of the neck, reached for his jacket and headed for the door. "Play it cool, baby. Play it cool."
CHAPTER EIGHT
I was getting nervous waiting for Frank to come. I thought about putting on some more of that swell French perfume Arline gave me for a present, but then I got scared Frank wouldn't like it. I was learning all right.
I turned on the radio and started to dance all by myself, so I'd get rid of this shaky feeling I had. Then the doorbell rang. Two shorts and a long, the way Joe told him. I went to welcome my escort for the evening. That's what Joe said he was.
"Frank?" I smiled sweet as I could, like Loretta Young on that TV show of hers.
"That's right, Lana." He had a big, booming voice and a build to match. He came into the apartment and stared all about. "Think you might start me off on a drink, honey?"
"Sure." I moved over to the cabinet, flung the doors open and waved to him to help himself. My eyes popped when I saw the line-up of bottles. Joe'd been shopping. "Want some ice cubes, Frank?"
"Don't touch the things. Like my liquor straight and my women curved." He laughed again and slapped me on the rear. "You're a dazzling young broad, Lana. I been everywhere, done everything, and I'm reaching the point where I'm getting bored. Think you can fix up a tired old character like me?"
I don't know what made me do it but I didn't say a word-just walked over to Frank, took the glass out of his hand and reached up to kiss him. Pretending hard as I could this was Joe.
"Well, that'll do for a start," he admitted when we finally broke it up. " The Night Is Young and You're So Beautiful'. You wouldn't know that song. That was on the Hit Parade way before you landed in this world.
Now, you go fix that lipstick and let's take a look at this town."
But before I went inside to the mirror, he had to have one more hug. He muttered a real satisfied, "Humph," and let me go.
I was busting with excitement when we went into this nightclub. At first I was kinda disappointed because it wasn't the Latin Quarter. Frank said this was a smart type supper club and he liked to sit around listening to the girl singer they had. The place was awful small and so crowded you had to push through to the table. Frank had a table saved for us, off to one side where we could see good and everybody could see us. At first, Frank kept his eyes on the singer, telling me how terrific she was, and then he let his eyes travel around the room. I could tell he was trying to see if people were noticing me. I was getting plenty looks all right, and Frank ate it up.
Under the table, Frank started moving his knee over to mine. He kept it there, sliding it up and down, like a regular exercise. Then he reached for one of my hands to hold, as if to say to the other customers, "See what I got? Ain't she terrific?"
I did what Joe said, about nursing one drink, even if Frank did kid me about it. After about forty minutes, he got tired of this place and we went on to another. I couldn't believe anybody could drink the way Frank was, but it didn't seem to do anything to him, except he was breathing heavier all the time and he was holding on tighter to my hand. Then he started putting an arm around my shoulder and sneaking up my neck with little baby kisses.
He got tired of this club, too, so we kept on going, from one place to another. Nobody'd believe it if I was to tell them all the places we went. I was dying to see Carmen's face if I told her where I was. We went to two supper clubs and the Latin Quarter and a strip joint on Fifty-Second Street, then down to loud smoky joints in Greenwich Village. After that, Frank told the taxi driver he wanted the hottest spot in Harlem.
I was kinda scared when we went into this place, it smelled so funny, sorta like leaves smell in the fall when they pile them up and burn them, only there was something sorta sweet about the smell too. Some of the characters in this place were way out. Frank flashed a big bill, and next thing waiters were hopping around like crazy and we were being set in the "nice, cozy corner" Frank kept saying he wanted.
"You hungry, baby?" Frank asked, like he was suddenly realizing it could happen.
"I'm starved," I admitted. Everybody else was eating all around us. And I figured the way he was drinking, some eating wouldn't hurt.
"Good girl!" He boomed it out so loud everybody in the place heard. "I like a woman who enjoys eating. Shows she enjoys other things, too." lie winked at me, and I didn't need no interpreter to know what he was talking about. "Give the little lady the best steak in the house," he told the guy who was waiting on us. "And the same for me."
When the food came, Frank settled down to eat like it was serious business. The steak was sensational and they brought a wild salad that was something from another planet. Frank insisted on ordering me another drink even though I showed him I still wasn't finished with the one I had.
"Come on, baby, drink. Look alive! Live it up! Time's awasting."
Only Frank wasn't exactly wasting time. He had one hand under the table, and first he was satisfied just to let it play up and down my leg, but then he got all overheated and began to travel. I knew it was dark where we were sitting but people were so close! His hand was way over my knee now and moving higher all the time. Then he reached over for my hand that was nearest to him and pulled it under the table. I was about to die I was so uncomfortable, but I figured I'd better go along the way he wanted. I was praying nobody'd decide to walk any closer. Frank was getting all excited now and I never was an ice cube, even if this was business. Maybe after a girl's had lots of experience it don't mean nothing.
Suddenly he stopped, pulled my dress down under the table and reached over to kiss me at the lowest spot in that low neckline. I thought I'd have to pull him out.
"Come on, baby, let's move along to your place. I need to stretch out and relax," Frank said.
"All right, honey." I was glad we didn't have to play that game about inviting him up for a nightcap.
When we got in the cab and he'd given the address to the driver, he pulled me tight and kissed me hard.
"You got a nice surprise at home for old Uncle Frank?" he practically cooed. "Joe says you been saving up plenty for me."
"You're nice," I said, wondering what he'd expect me to tell him, but he wasn't really worrying about me talking. He was rattling a blue streak about all the girls he'd known and how terrific they were and how the older he got, the younger he liked them.
"How old are you, baby?" He narrowed his eyes like he was trying to dig the truth outta me. "Seventeen? Eighteen?"
I figured, if he liked 'em young, I might as well give it to him straight.
"Wow!" I could see he was impressed. "Old Frank's really robbing the cradle. How long you been in this line, anyhow?"
"Just a few weeks," I admitted, then I wondered if he'd be sore because I wasn't more experienced. "But Joe says I m one of the best. Honest, Frank." I was scared now about talking too much. Joe'd warned me about that.
"And Joe's a boy who's sampled the merchandise, huh?" Frank boomed out with that wild laugh of his again and I knew everything was okay.
The cab let us out in front of the house and Frank followed me inside. I turned on just one lamp and then did the "excuse me while I get into something comfortable" bit.
"Take your time, honey, take your time. We got the rest of the night." Frank took off his jacket and tie and stretched on the sofa.
I got into that nightie and negligee and looked in the mirror. The outfit was sensational all right but something was wrong. Then I got it. The hair piled up didn't look even the tiniest bit sexy. Maybe Joe knew a lot of things, but I knew with that long black hair of mine hanging loose about my shoulders, that old guy in the next room was sure to flip. I took out the pins and brushed the hair nice and loose. And then I put perfume all over me-this wasn't no college professor. I was beginning to know the difference between one guy and the next. I fixed the negligee so it was almost sliding off one shoulder, then I walked into the other room.
"Wow!" Frank popped to his feet like he was shot. "Don't let anybody tell me this isn't the hottest little doll on record."
"You want to try it for size?" I flipped, repeating something I heard Carmen spit out once.
"All in good time, baby. Don't you worry, we'll get there. And by the time we do, you're going to be screaming for it, doll. Screaming!"
He came over and before I knew what hit me, he had that negligee off in one corner and the night gown was sailing right after it. He kept talking about being a guy that likes to "feel the merchandise", and that's what he was doing all right. Then he pulled away from me and stood there with a silly grin on his face.
"Baby, it's awful warm in here. Help me get comfortable like you are. Okay?" He held his arms out as if he was about three years old and waiting for his nurse to undress him.
If this was part of the show, I was game. I went over and unbuttoned his shirt and took it off. I was a jerk with the zipper but Frank didn't mind. I guess he figured my being nervous was natural. Only, all of a sudden I wasn't nervous no more because I caught on I was selling okay. That's what Carmen called it when a guy liked her pitch. I pretended he was a little boy and I was his nurse getting him ready for bed.
"But no pajamas, nursie," Frank reminded me with that satisfied grin. Then he sat on the sofa and pulled me down on his lap.
"Sure you won't catch cold?" I giggled.
"With a hot little number like you to warm me up?"
"You might be more comfortable in the other room," I said. I didn't like staying in here with the lamps on.
"Well get there, sweetie. We got all night long."
Then he dumped me off his lap, right onto the floor, and he slid down beside me. "Nothing like a good solid floor underneath you, honey. And a good solid guy like me above."
Maybe he didn't mind the floor but he wasn't lying on it! After a few minutes he got wise and reached up for a pillow to put under my head. He had hands like an elephant and he wasn't exactly gentle the way he used them.
"Bruising you, baby?" he asked after a while.
"No, honey," I lied, wishing he'd make up his mind to get up off this hard floor and move on to the bedroom.
Frank was taking his time all right and if it wasn't for the floor being so hard, I'll bet I woulda been shooting through the ceiling. But how can you enjoy something when your back's breaking?
"Don't be bashful about expressing yourself, doll," Joe said after a while, and I caught on he wanted more from me.
"You're sensational, Frank," I said and dug my nails into his shoulders.
"That's not where I'm sensational," he laughed and reached for my hand to demonstrate.
After a while he decided it was time for something new, so he started sliding down. I started to forget about the floor. He was working with everything he had. I wasn't the only one with tricks. This guy coulda unfroze the Arctic Circle. He musta known every kinda girl there ever was and everything he learned he was teaching to me.
I was going crazy with everything that was happening. "Oh, Frank, Frank, Frank!" I kept saying over and over, like I didn't know what to do next.
"You want it, baby?" he whispered. "Say it. Tell me you want it."
"I want it, Frank! I want it!"
He put his hand over my mouth when I yelled, but I could tell he was pleased as hell.
"Baby, you're like a Mexican tamale! Just a beginner but you coulda been Madame DuBarry!"
He got up to his feet and went into the bathroom. I could hear the shower running. After a while he came out drying himself with a towel.
"Go on, honey, take yourself a shower. Then let's go grab ourselves a little shut-eye."
I picked up the nightie and negligee and went in to shower. Before I came out again, I fixed my make-up and brushed my hair so I wouldn't look like such a mess. Frank was sprawled back in a chair, a towel tied around his stomach, drinking again.
"You hungry, Frank? Joe says there's an all-night delicatessen around the corner that delivers. We can call."
"Who needs food?" Frank grinned and came over to me. "Let's go inside and try out that bed you been talking about."
I musta fallen asleep in twenty seconds. When I woke up, I was flat on my tummy and Frank was at it again!
Right then I wished he'd put on his clothes and go climb the Alps or something. But Joe said this guy was important to us. And he might give me a big tip. Even if I hated starting all over again-and he was gonna be sure he covered the field-I couldn't say "no". This was a job, wasn't it? Joe was depending on me to do it right.
I pretended I was nuts about everything he tried when I really wanted to pick up that lamp and hit him over the head with it. He musta been saving up for a year. Wasn't he ever gonna get tired?
"Baby, I'm bushed," he said finally, falling on his back like he'd never get up. I thought, hooray, now it's over!
"Would you like some breakfast?" I jumped up from the bed. It was almost eight o'clock in the morning now, and I began to worry about getting him out of here so I could go on home plenty early.
"Persuade me." He gave me that nutty laugh again and pulled me back onto the bed. "Come on, baby, persuade Frankie boy."
So I persuaded him. Now it was like a machine and he was pushing the button. I was learning how to fake, though. A lotta things Arline had tried to explain made sense to me now. He was sure he was sending me right through the roof again.
He left at ten o'clock and he gave me a hundred buck bill for a tip. I wondered how much Joe took from him. That apartment Joe kept promising me didn't feel so far away anymore. If I kept working this way, I'd have it even sooner than Joe said.
What a screwy way to live, I thought while I locked the door to Joe's apartment and headed for the subway. I was leading a double life, like in a spy story. Here I had to go on home and make believe I was the same dumb kid I'd been a month ago, when I was somebody so different I couldn't hardly believe it myself. I wished I coulda worn that black dress right back to the house, and kept my hair in that French twist the hairdresser fixed for me. Boy, would I love to wave that hundred dollar bill around the neighborhood! I'll bet nobody there ever even seen one.
All of a sudden I remembered how I'd promised myself to buy Joanie some sunsuits. I'd been so fulla excitement over my new dress and the other stuff, I'd clean forgot about Joanie. I had that hundred dollar tip. Joe said we split tips fifty-fifty, but I'd still have plenty left to go on a real spree for the kids. For a minute I thought about not telling Joe it was a hundred. It'd be easy, he wouldn't never ask a client about a tip. No, I wasn't gonna lie to Joe. Wasn't he the swellest guy I ever knew? Wasn't he doing all these things for me? We were partners. I wouldn't keep nothing from Joe.
When I got into our hallway, I took the hundred outta my bra and rolled it up small enough to fit into my compact. Mom always hid money in her bra, so I figured it wouldn't be such a good idea for me to do it, too. Then I got that cold feeling all the way down to my toes, the kind that hits you when you nearly made a bad mistake. What a dumb kid! I was going home again with nothing to show for my "baby-sitting"!
I turned around and went right out of the house, praying Mom wouldn't be looking out the window and spot me. Where'd I break a hundred dollar bill on a Sunday morning? Not in this neighborhood-they'd think I stole it. I walked through the streets, knocking my brains out, looking around for something to give me a idea. Then it came to me. I'd take the subway to Grand Central and I'd buy a train ticket for two or three weeks later for somewhere like down to Miami. Afterwards I could take the ticket back and say I couldn't go, and they'd give me back my money. I know they do that on train tickets because once Mom thought she was going to meet this friend down in Baltimore and she bought a ticket but something happened, so she turned in the ticket and collected the dough.
I went to Grand Central Station and I bought a day coach ticket for Miami. The ticket seller didn't blink an eye, just made up the ticket and gave me my change. It was kinda fun, as if I really was going to Miami. I knew I shoulda gone straight back home, but instead I went into a restaurant around the corner and had myself breakfast. A slice of honey dew, bacon, eggs and coffee. Then I took a cab all the way back uptown. If I made a hundred buck tip, I had a right to enjoy some of it.
I stopped in the bakery and bought a dozen chocolate eclairs. I had it all made up how Mrs. Curtis gave me ten bucks for sitting because I had to stay overnight and the eclairs were my treat out of my half of the babysitting. The way things was going, I'd need a set of books to keep myself straight on everything.
'It took you long enough to get home," Mom was complaining before I was halfway in the door.
"It's only twelve o'clock, Mom," I said, calm as I could. "We didn't have breakfast till after ten, then I stayed to do the dishes."
Mom was cranky. I figured she was tired of staying so close to the house with Mark. She was used to running out to the beach during the summer.
"What's that Mrs. Curtis think-she's hiring herself a housekeeper, too?" Mom went over to the refrigerator and brought out the pitcher of cold water.
"She gave me ten bucks, Mom," I said. I knew this'd make her sit up.
"She did, huh?" Mom smiled like Mrs. Curtis was her best friend. "She's a sweet woman, all right."
"I brought some eclairs from my share." I put the box on the table and opened it.
"You got some for all of us, Lana?" Rita stood pop-eyed in the doorway.
"Sure, honey." Looking at her little scared face, I knew how much I loved those little kids. I didn't want to see them missing things-I was gonna take care of them. "And you know what?"
"What?" Rita giggled and rushed over to throw herself all over me.
"This afternoon we're going to the movies. You and me and Liz and Debbie." I had to laugh, the way Rita went yelling for the other two like Santa Claus had come in July.
"You sure getting big-hearted," Mom said, but half like she was mad. "Everybody goes out but Grandma and me.
"Grandma ain't interested in movies," I reminded, "and if you wanta go to the beach, I'll take care of Mark."
"But not this afternoon," Mom pointed out.
"What's so special about this afternoon?" I was surprised.
"Because I coulda went to Coney Island for the day. This old friend of mine came into town and he happened to pass by. But I said, no, I had nobody to leave the baby with. My daughter's more interested in running around with this wonderful Mrs. Curtis she knows."
I got it now. One of Mom's boyfriends was buzzing around now that she wasn't pregnant no more. I just hoped she'd have enough sense to stay that way. She didn't have to get pregnant; I knew that much now. It was just because she wanted to, to keep from having to go to work.
Mom went over and put up the coffee percolator. She likes coffee when we have cake, even when it was hot like today. I poured ice water into the glasses and added some of that gook we kept to make it like sodas for the kids.
"Oh, here's the five bucks." I went to my purse and took it out.
I'd put the two fives right where Mom could see them. Tomorrow I'd have to think up a good place to keep the rest of my money. Joe said I'd start taking my share of the client's fees beginning from now on. Until Joe went out to buy me more wardrobe.
Mom took the five and half-smiled. "You doing okay, kid, tying up with a rich dame like this Mrs. Curtis. What show'd they see last night?"
I nearly dropped dead inside. I forgot I'd told Mom they were going to see a Broadway show.
"They changed their minds," I explained quick. "They went nightclubing instead. To some supper club with a girl singer everybody's raving about, then they went to the Latin Quarter and places down in the Village where all the beatnicks hang out and to this spot in Harlem where she said you could practically smell the marijuana and they had a floor show where the girls took off practically all their clothes."
"No fooling!" Mom was staring, hungry-eyed. "What else did she say about it?"
"They had the biggest steaks she ever saw and some crazy drinks she never even heard of. She said it was the kinda club where anything went. They saw a couple at one of the tables where the guy was doing everything but raping the girl right there."
"Not in front of the kids," Mom warned, taking a fast look at them. They were all busy eating eclairs and drinking sodas. They were having a contest to see who could make them last the longest. "Go on, Lana, tell me the rest."
Just then, Mark started to bawl off in the bedroom, so I had a good excuse to beat it. Knowing Mom, I could be sure the baby was yelling to have his diaper changed. By the time I got through with that, she'd be off on another track. With that extra five I gave her, it was easy to figure out she'd go running off to the beach tomorrow.
"Say, Lana," Mom yelled to me from the kitchen.
"Yeah?" I called back, busy with the baby.
"When you goin' baby-sitting again?"
"I don't know. Mrs. Curtis is gonna call me at the Rafferty's. They don't mind, do they?"
"Why should they?" Mom wanted to know. "Don't cost them anything. But maybe you oughta buy Mrs. Rafferty a little present if the calls keep coming."
"I'll do that, Mom," I promised. "I'll buy her a potted geranium out of the next money I get."
Boy, wouldn't Mrs. Rafferty drop dead if she knew the truth about those calls she was taking. Mrs. Rafferty was one of those holy-holy kind of dopes who didn't like anybody to have any fun. She only let Rita play in the flat with her kid because it made it easier for her to keep that nasty pest of hers busy. And here she was, taking calls about my business appointments like she was my secretary!
Things were moving so swell I couldn't believe it. All I had to do was keep talking all the time about Mrs. Curtis and what she did and how gorgeous her apartment was. Joe was bringing me in on calls three or four nights a week. Sometimes I entertained three clients in one night, on weekends. Joe said they only paid twenty bucks each, but it added up to sixty bucks for a night. Soon, Joe kept telling me, we wouldn't take on such pikers.
Even with what I had to take home as if it was for babysitting, I made out swell. A coupla times Joe kept my share to put towards the rent, but that was fair enough because it was for business expenses.
I got jittery about keeping extra money around the house, so I spent it fast as I could. I bought clothes for Joanie, making like Mrs. Curtis had too many for her kid and had sent this stuff on home to Mom. Mom even sat down and wrote a note thanking her for the clothes.
Then I started buying clothes for me, saying Mrs. Curtis only wore some things once and gave 'em away. It was a good thing I had told Mom Mrs. Curtis was about my size. Mom wasn't nuts about the clothes I bought for myself-they weren't flashy enough to suit her. I was smarter than I used to be. I went over to the fancy Fifth Avenue department stores because I figured anything I bought couldn't be too wrong if they had it in a place like that. I tried to wear my hair in that French twist all the time now, pretending I seen this picture in a magazine, but Mom wouldn't swallow that. She said it made me look at least five years older than I was and she wouldn't have it. But I cut down on my make-up until Carmen asked if I was sick or something.
One Saturday Joe took me to dinner and the movies before the client arrived. It was as if we were having a regular date. We had to be back by ten o'clock, though, for my appointment. I wished sometimes I didn't have so many appointments so I could spend more time with Joe. When we went out together, people stared at us. I'll bet Joe coulda been a movie star if he wanted to.
I was getting jittery now because school was opening soon. Sometimes I got calls during the day and Joe wanted me to take them. It'd be tough when school started up. I didn't let on to Joe but Mom was already making noises about how I'd have to cut down on baby-sitting when school started. All of a sudden she was fulla talk about me doing my homework and not lousing up on my school marks. I don't know why she picked up this crazy idea about being so interested in school.
I was standing in front of the bathroom mirror, trying to decide on a new way to do my hair, when Mom yelled I had a call at Mrs. Rafferty's. I went over quick, figuring it was Arline.
"Hello," I said-finally, when Mrs. Rafferty had moved a few feet away. "Lana?" This wasn't Arline. I didn't know who it was. "Yeah."
"I'm calling for Mrs. Curtis," the strange voice said.
"Oh yes, Mrs. Curtis." I made it sound like I was talking to her for Mrs. Rafferty's benefit.
"You have a baby-sitting appointment for tonight. Seven sharp," the voice told me.
"Tonight? But it's already almost four." I was practically stuttering. I set it up so Mom knew I always had notice the night before. And this strange dame bothered me. I was scared maybe Joe was in trouble and they were trying to track me down, too.
"Mrs. Curtis expects you at seven," the voice said again, and hung up.
"Oh yes, I'll be there, Mrs. Curtis, don't worry," I said to the dead wire and hung up.
"You making yourself a lotta money, Lana," Mrs. Rafferty said, friendly on the outside but I knew she wasn't wasting any love on me. "Nice you made yourself such a fine friend."
"She's a real lady," I said and headed for the door. Then I remembered I needed Mrs. Rafferty. "Thanks so much for calling me."
"Anytime, Lana," Mrs. Rafferty said, with that phony sweet voice. "And how's the new baby? Heat bothering him much?"
"He's fine. About the cutest little guy I ever seen." I smiled and went on across the hall to our own place. I was worried about that call.
"Sitting tomorrow night?" Mom asked.
"Tonight," I told her. "I gotta be there by seven."
"I thought she always gave you notice so you could fix up everything at home." I forgot Mom was supposed to go to the movies with that same creep again.
"Her mother's in the hospital," I made up, scared to death. "She's waiting for me to come over so she can go on up to see her. Her husband's outta town on business."
"You think Rita'd be okay with the baby?" Mom was fighting against giving up that date tonight.
"She's too little, Mom! You have to stay with the baby! This is an emergency." I was practically begging.
"Okay," Mom said finally, "but you make sure you tell Mrs. Curtis how you made me upset my plans to come to her. Maybe she'll feel like sending me a little something special."
"I'll tell her," I promised and went chasing downstairs to a phone booth.
I couldn't wait to get hold of Joe to find out what was up. That strange dame phoning and for the same night. This never happened before. I was awful anxious. But Joe wasn't at the office and I couldn't reach him at home. I called five times and nobody answered. I didn't know what to do about tonight. I didn't want to go walking into some kinda trap.
CHAPTER NINE
I was so jittery I could hardly open the downstairs door. When I got upstairs, I decided to ring the bell first in case Joe was there. He answered right away.
"Hi ya, baby," he said as if everything was okay.
"Joe, I was so scared. This strange dame phoned up, and she said I was to be here tonight. I didn't know what to think. I almost didn't come."
"I'm sorry I frightened you, Lana doll. It's just that Arline's out of town and I have this client for tonight. If he likes you, he'll be a regular, every four or five weeks. We want to build up a following, honey. I told you that, didn't ir
"I was so worried!" I fell onto the sofa. "I kept imagining the screwiest things."
"I had this dame make the call for me so at least it was a woman's voice on the phone. From now on we don't use Arline for messages. We can't depend on anybody but ourselves."
"How'll we manage?" I didn't have a phone-Joe knew that.
"I'm putting on an answering service. This is how it works. When I'm not in the place and the phone rings, they answer and take the message. I told 'em, give all messages to me or Miss Lana. You phone up the answering service three or four times a day to find out if I've left a message. You leave a message okaying the call when you get one. The gals on this answering service are hep. They know the score."
"Okay, Joe," I said, sighing with relief after all the nutty ideas that popped into my head. But then something new bothered me. "Joe, how'll I fix it up with Mom? She's used to me getting calls at Mrs. Rafferty's."
"You say Mrs. Curtis wants you to phone every day because she's getting so busy sometimes she forgets."
"But I'll have to give her your phone number then. She's asked me a dozen times already for Mrs. Curtis' number and I pretend I forgot." I got panicky, thinking of Mom calling up and Joe answering.
"No problem." Joe pushed it away as if it was nothing. "If I answer, it's Mr. Curtis. There is a Mr. Curtis." Joe grinned. "So stop worrying, Miss Sexpot of New York City."
"I won't worry about a thing," I promised, thrilled to death hearing Joe call me Miss Sexpot of New York City.
"This guy tonight used to be one of Arline's regulars but now he's looking for something different. Never takes more than an hour and you don't need to bother with the window dressing. Just stay dressed as you are."
"Mom was awful sore I didn't give her warning about coming over tonight." I hoped Joe wouldn't do this all the time or I'd be in real hot water.
"With all that money you're trotting home from babysitting, she won't be sore long." Joe was more cheerful about it than me. "She might make some noise, but that's all."
"Anyhow, I'll be home early." Then I remembered how I hadn't even bothered changing clothes. I'd just come over in the old skirt and blouse I was wearing around the house because it was too hot to mess up any of my new clothes. "Joe, you think he's gonna like seeing me dressed this way?"
"Arline says he won't know the difference. He's been going to her for a year, so he's bored with her. He's after what he called a young chick."
"Me?" I snuggled up against Joe. I never was around him long without aching to get as close as anybody could be to somebody else.
"You, sweetie." He pushed my head back and kissed me and I thought, we've got plenty of time before that character gets here. But Joe had other ideas. "I have to go cart around a customer who wants to see the town. Be good and go straight home afterwards. Everything's go-I'll ing too great for your old lady to latch on to some wild idea now."
"I could stay for an hour afterwards if you can come back for a while." I leaned my face on his shoulder and rubbed up against him in that cat-way he liked so much.
"Can't make it tonight, baby." From the way he said it, I knew he wouldn't change his mind. "Remember, call the answering service three or four times every day. If there's a call from me, you say you'll make the appointment on schedule. Got it?"
"I'll make the appointment on schedule."
"That's it. Here's the number. Better yet, you memorize their number, then throw away this paper. No need to have that around in case your old lady starts to snoop."
Joe left and I sort of wandered about the apartment waiting for Mr. Smith. He wouldn't be here for almost an hour. I was sure meeting a lot of Mr. Smiths and Mr. Jones. It was strange to be here in my old clothes. I opened up the closet to look at the other things because it made me feel good to know they belonged to me. Joe was taking me dancing some night, he promised. Some place I could wear that black cocktail dress just for him. I went over to the cabinet where Joe kept the liquor and made myself a drink. I didn't care what it was if I could dump it into a glass of gingerale. Joe always kept the refrigerator loaded with soda and gingerale. The drink made me feel warm and kinda lightheaded and I put on a record and danced by myself for a while. Then I heard the doorbell, so I turned off the phonograph.
This Mr. Smith was short, fat and bald. He came in puffing from walking up the stairs and when he took off his jacket, his shirt was stuck to him with perspiration.
"So you're Lana." He patted me on the cheek as if I was about six.
"And you're Mr. Smith." I took his jacket and put it on a chair in the corner.
"You're a cute kid," he said, inspecting me like he was a real expert. "With a pair like you got there, you woulda been a headliner in burlesque. Ever see a burlesque show?"
"No," I said, "but I heard about 'em. My mother had a girl friend once who used to dance in a burlesque show."
"Let's play burlesque, what do you say?" He sat down on the sofa, rubbing his hands together. "This here is the front row and there's the runway. I'll do the whistling for music and you tease like the gals used to do in the old burlesque. How about it, baby?"
"Fine." I seen the fellas kid around about burlesque and teasing so I had a pretty good idea what he wanted.
"Okay, baby, curtain going up!" He pulled open his shirt at the neck and started to whistle "A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody".
"We got that record," I remembered suddenly. "You want me to put it on the phonograph?"
"That's swell! Well have a whole orchestra. Put it on and let's get on with the show."
I got out the record and stuck it on the phonograph. Then I started to walk around the room to the music. I took a couple minutes getting out of the blouse, and then I fooled around with the skirt. The record went on to the next number, but he wasn't bothering to start it over again at "Pretty Gir!". I made out I was having trouble with the bra, and he clapped his hands and yelled "Take it off! Take it off!" so I did and threw it right in his face. I thought he'd flip his lid when I got the panties off and threw them at him. I stood there waiting, but all he did was laugh like he was a two-year-old at the Circus. Then he hopped up to his feet, and went over to start the record at the beginning.
"Come on, baby, let's do it again!"
I got back into my clothes, then started to move around and strip, like before. And he got to his feet and did the same thing I was doing! It was so funny I nearly busted out laughing, seeing this short, fat guy with the bald head making like a burlesque queen. And he was taking it off, too, right down to his shoes and socks.
"You're a gorgeous broad, Lana! A gorgeous broad!" He grabbed me and it was funny because the top of his head made it just to my nose. He started to kiss me like he was dying of thirst. He kissed me and kissed me all over and then he wanted me to do the same to him.
"Come on, honey. I'm your little baby boy and you're nuts about me. Kiss me, honey!" He plopped himself flat on the couch and dragged me over to sit beside him. It made me sick slobbering over him, but finally he had enough.
"Come on, baby, quick!" He dragged me down on top of him, and one, two, three, he was finished.
He got dressed as if he couldn't get away fast enough. He said he'd see me in a few weeks, but I was sore because he didn't give me a tip.
I went inside to shower to get that sticky slobberly feeling off my skin. I took my time dressing and fixing my face. I was about to open the door to leave when I heard the key outside. It was Joe.
"Hi ya, baby doll!"
"Joe, this is swell!" I was thrilled to death to see him. "Mr. Smith said he'll be back," I reported, business-like as I could, not letting on I hoped he never came back.
"Great." Joe reached for me and the smell of liquor nearly knocked me out. "The more the merrier, that's for us."
"What happened with the customer you were taking out?" I never seen Joe drunk before. It made him seem different.
"Dropped 'em off at the theatre. Wanted to see a Broadway show. I'm picking 'em up later."
He pulled me over to the sofa and dragged me down onto his lap. "You're the most gorgeous, hottest slut I ever laid eyes on!"
"Joe!" He bit me right on the shoulder.
"Goes to prove you're good enough to eat." He got up and dragged me with him to the cabinet. "Come on, sweetie, have a drink with Joey."
"If you have to pick up that customer, maybe you shouldn't have no more," I said, half-afraid of making him sore.
"Baby," he was almost bawling, "you're worrying about your Joey."
"Sure," I admitted. Then I forgot to worry because he was kissing me in that crazy way of his that made me forget everything, even that he was so drunk he could hardly stand up. Drunk or not, Joe was the swellest guy I ever knew and there wasn't nothing I wouldn't do for him.
Joe poured a drink for him and one for me and he kept his arm around me while I drank mine down. He musta forgot to stop pouring because, even with all that gingerale, mine burnt something awful going down. Then he took the glasses and put them away and he put on the phonograph so we could dance.
After a minute we didn't bother with dancing. Joe was making love like he was off his rocker. I knew it was all that liquor in him, but I nearly died when he started yelling all those filthy names at me. And all the time he kept on loving me up. I screamed when he slapped me so sudden-like and then he came over "to kiss and make it well." He kept on hitting me and I'd yell and we'd kiss some more. This was the screwiest game I ever played. Men are plain crazy.
Joe stopped for a few minutes to make us another drink. I just fell onto the sofa as if I'd never get up again. I was so tired and so sore from all that slapping around and still I wanted him to come back to me. Golly, he was the best-looking guy I ever seen except in the movies and it was me he wanted, even if I was only a kid.
"Come on, you filthy little tramp that drives me wild!" He handed me the glass and waited till I swung it down.
He was drinking straight out of the water glass like it was from a shot glass. "Come on, you luscious, over-ripe whore!" He grabbed me by the hair and pulled me up hard against him, and I didn't care what dirty stinking names he was yelling at me because he wanted me so bad it was killing him.
"Come on, baby, show me. Show me you're the greatest."
"Yeah, Joe." I was giggling and crying at the same time. "We'll show each other."
I didn't want this ever to be over. It had to keep on forever and ever and ever.
When I woke up, Joe was sprawled out on the floor, holding a sofa pillow in his arms. It was daylight outside! I nearly died right there. How'd I ever fix this up with Mom? I had stayed out all night without even tryin' to call her at Mrs. Rafferty's. For a minute I thought about not going home at all. I'd just disappear. But Mom'd call the police and they'd find out there wasn't no Mrs. Curtis. They might find out about Joe and the clients and we'd all land in jail.
I had to go back home and face Mom. I'd rather die right here this minute, but I had to go home to Mom. I was fifteen years old and if I didn't go home, Joe and me'd both be in worse trouble. I picked up my clothes and went into the bathroom to dress. I was so jittery I couldn't even put my lipstick and eyebrow pencil on straight. I never stayed out all night before. Unless a miracle popped up, I was finished with "baby-sitting". I'd never see Joe again!
I wished I had the nerve to kill myself.
CHAPTER TEN
It was almost eight o'clock when I opened the door to the apartment. I had a wild idea maybe Mom was asleep and didn't even know I wasn't on my half of the studio couch. I tiptoed through the kitchen into the living room.
"You rotten little tramp!" Mom jumped outta bed. "Where you get the nerve to go running around all night? I didn't raise you like that."
"I was scared to phone you at the Rafferty's when it got so late." I was trying to bluff my way through. I'd been thinking about this all the way home on the subway. "You know how sore they'd get if I phoned eleven or twelve o'clock."
"Don't try to lie your way out of this. Mrs. Rafferty told me. That wasn't Mrs. Curtis phoning this time. Who was it? Your girl friend Carmen fixed for you to bum around with her and them jailbird pals of hers?"
"Mrs. Curtis had a neighbor call me," I insisted, the way I planned it. "Her mother was in a accident and they took her to the hospital in an ambulance. Mrs. Curtis left the baby with this woman next door until I got down. They didn't come home until maybe five or six o'clock."
"Where's the hospital? What's her mother's name?" Mom was yelling so loud the whole house musta heard her. "Go on, tell me the hospital."
"It was somewhere across town," I was running out of lies now. I hadn't figured on Mom trying to check up on me with the hospital. "And how would I know her mother's name? I never even seen her."
"You don't know the hospital because there ain't none. You been bumming around, coming home with God knows what. I find out you been with guys, Lana, I'll throw you right into reform school, so help me!"
"You got some nerve!" All of a sudden I was sore. Mom all of a sudden acting high and mighty like she was Mrs. Rafferty or somebody. Didn't everybody in the whole neighborhood know about her and her guys? What about her getting pregnant all the time? It wasn't no immaculate conception.
Mom looked kinda scared. I guess she knew what I meant all right.
"No more baby-sitting!" She went into the kitchen because Grandma had woke up with all the noise and wanted to know what was going on. "You don't go more'n a block away from this house. I ain't having no fifteen-year-old tramp on my hands!"
I waited until the kids started making noises about going down to play after lunch before saying I'd take the baby and Joanie over to the park. I was scared Mom wouldn't even let me go that far.
"Make sure you don't pick up some of them bums hangin' around there. I seen them young punks, like that friend of Carmen's." Mom was sure fascinated with how Chuck got caught stealing that car. I guess to her it was like something she read in the newspapers.
I parked the carriage in front of the candy store and took Joanie into the phone booth with me. It was awful stuffy with the door closed but I didn't want nobody to hear what I was saying. I'd try Joe's apartment first. I was wondering now if I shoulda waked him up before I left.
"Joe?"
"What the devil happened last night?" He sounded mad. "I woke up half an hour ago to find the place is upside down and I'm lying on the floor without my clothes."
"You'd been d-r-i-n-k-i-n-g." Maybe it sounded nutty, spelling it out, but I wasn't taking no chances with Joanie picking up something she might pass on to Mom.
"What's with you and the spelling?"
"I got Joanie in the phone booth with me."
"And I got a head big as a circus tent," Joe groaned. "I phoned the office and said I was sick. If that old boy calls in and says I didn't show up to collect him last night, I'm in trouble."
"I'm in trouble, too," I whispered.
"What're you talking about?" Joe sounded shocked.
"Nothing like you're thinking," I corrected him fast. "With Mom. Don't you remember? I was at your place all night. I didn't even phone home to make some excuse or something."
"That's wonderful," Joe groaned. "That's all I need to hear."
"Joe, you're smart. Think of something."
"What'd you tell the old lady?"
"That Mrs. Curtis' mother was in a accident and she left the baby with this woman next door until I got there. But I couldn't leave because they didn't come home from the hospital until five or six this morning."
"She didn't go for it?"
"Are you kidding? She wanted to know the name of the hospital and Mrs. Curtis' mother's name. It's a wonder she didn't ask for a note from the doctor, too." Then I told him the crusher. "She won't let me out of her sight now. She said I'm through with baby-sitting."
"Like hell!" Joe was burning up. "We'll figure out something."
"What? It'll have to be awful good to make Mom swallow it."
"Don't rush me, will you? I'm thinking."
"All right, Joe." I sat there, waiting for him to cook up something I could use. This was a stinker, even for Joe.
"Look, baby, your old lady like flowers or candy?"
"We got a geranium in a pot-that takes care of the flowers. Mom's more interested in candy. Why?"
"Listen to this. Mrs. Curtis sends your mother a five pound box of the best chocolates made, with a note saying thanks for you coming to her rescue."
"By the time it comes I can be dead." I was disappointed this was all he could think up. If Joe couldn't dig me outta this one, I was back to plain old Lana, chiseling dimes from Mom for sodas. It'd kill me to go back to being just me.
"You think I'm stupid?" Joe cracked, but he wasn't sore. "They got a service at Western Union-you can have a box of candy delivered in a few hours."
"You mean you could make sure Mom got the candy today?" I couldn't believe it could work so fast. "Before she can get it in her head maybe I had something to do with it?"
"In three hours. I'll go right down and take care of it. Your old lady won't catch on, don't worry."
"You think it'll work?" I was dying to hear him say "yes". Joanie kept twisting around in the phone booth because it was so sticky, so I couldn't stay much longer.
"It's a solid chance." Joe sounded more cheerful. "Call me tonight and let me know."
"When?"
"I'll be home from six on. Some guys are dropping by for a little cards. Call me then, doll."
"All right. Talk to you later."
I put the phone down, picked up Joanie and stopped off at the fountain. Least I could do was buy the poor kid a malted after keeping her in that sweatbox with me. I noticed how the fella behind the counter was giving me these funny looks and I jemembered I'd been spending money too free around the place. From now on I'd spread it around, and I'd be careful with phone calls, too. All Mom had to hear was Lana lives in the phone booths. With that answering service set-up, I'd been feeding dimes into that thing three, four times every day.
When I got home Mom was busting with excitement. A Western Union boy had come with the box of candy.
Mom had it open and the card the store sent along right next to it.
"Lana baby, don't be mad at me." Mom was pouring on the charm. "You can't blame me for getting worried when you stay out all night like you did. Next time you go over to Mrs. Curtis, you could drop a hint about how I'm nuts for perfume. Maybe she'll send me a little present since she's so anxious for you to come over all the time."
"Yeah, Mom, I'll mention it," I promised. This was working out lots better than I hoped for. I'd have to remember to buy Mom some of that perfume she was forever yapping about. A guy gave her some once and she still kept the fancy bottle it came in with her clothes, even though it was empty over a year ago.
I was glad I wasn't having trouble with Mom. This having to phone up three or four times a day was a pain in the neck though. I kept chasing around to a different phone booth each time, moving further and further from our house so I wouldn't bump into anybody I knew.
Then school opened and I worried about Joe fixing up clients during the day when he knew I had to be at school. He was doing it too much for me to feel good about it. I could be out once in a while but not every couple weeks, the way he was making me do. It was bad enough having to go running over to his place dragging along school books in the middle of the week. Boy, that used to hand Joe a laugh. I'd walk in with my books, hide them someplace and start in on what Joe said was my "post-graduate course".
I brought Mom perfume twice and I was using my "baby sitting" money for the kids. I didn't have to make up lies about buying my clothes on sale. All I had to do was say Mrs. Curtis gave it to me. They were pop-eyed every time I bounced into school with a gorgeous new sweater or a skirt that cost twenty bucks. Arline was teaching me a lot about clothes. She got me to studying magazines like Vogue and Glamour and Charm and this was homework I didn't cheat on. Arline'd come over to Joe's every once in a while and we'd sit around and gab till she had to leave for her next appointment. Joe liked it because he could see I was learning plenty. He'd laugh and say that in a year I'd be passing for a real debutante.
Arline was going to buy herself a mink stole and invited me to go shopping with her. It was Columbus Day so we had no school. I told Mom Mrs. Curtis was taking me shopping. Mom nearly died when I said she was buying herself a mink stole.
I was all set to leave the house when the phone call came. It surprised me because we never used Mrs. Rafferty no more. Arline was on the other end and she said, go to the regular place instead of meeting her like we'd planned. Joe would explain. "Don't phone him up," Arline said three or four times, kind of excited. "Just beat it right over there."
I went back and told Mom Mrs. Curtis wanted me to meet her over on Fifth Avenue insteada at the house so we'd have more time for shopping. And she was taking me to lunch afterwards. Mom said it was better than reading a story sometimes, to hear me tell her about Mrs. Curtis and what she wore and all the places she went.
I was a nervous wreck till I got to the apartment. I couldn't figure out what was wrong. Something was, that was plain. I rang the doorbell and Joe let me right in.
"You didn't call the service today, did you?" His hands were shaking so bad cigarette ashes were flopping all over the rug.
"No, Arline said not to. What happened?" I didn't take my eyes off his face I was so scared.
"This!" He picked up the morning paper and shoved the headline under my nose. "That's our answering service that's being dragged in with this vice ring the cops nabbed. All their records are being subpoenaed."
"They don't know about us?" I stood, froze into place.
"Not yet. I don't think they'll catch on to a phone set-up like ours. It sounds as if it belongs to a professional couple. But we can't take any chances. This morning I ordered the phone cut off. I'm subletting the apartment to a salesman from Solly's. He's moving in tonight. He knows enough to keep his trap shut if the cops come nosing around."
"Where'll you go?" I couldn't believe it was ending like this. "What about the clients? We got some regulars now."
"For two weeks we don't do nothing," Joe said. "I'm moving into a hotel downtown. We'll watch close, make sure nobody's on to us. If the coast is clear, then we'll talk about setting up again."
"Howll you know if it's okay?" I still couldn't believe I wouldn't be seeing this place no more. What'd I do with my clothes I kept here? And the perfume and that big load of make-up I was collecting for kicks?
"I'll know if we're clean, don't you worry. Believe me, baby, I want to keep on with this gravy train just as much as you. Now, you pack up your stuff and we take it over to Arline's. She'll keep it for you."
"Maybe we could use Arline's place once in a while," I said, kind of hopeful.
"We don't do anything," Joe told me, his eyes fulla those dark glints he gets when he's hot about something. "We sit and we wait. Now you go pile your stuff together so we can take it over to Arline's. I'm all packed and I got a room waiting for me." He went over to the table and wrote out the name and telephone number. "When you call up, don't say much. Switchboard gals got big ears sometimes. Just say casual things that could be anybody talking, see?"
"I know whatcha mean," I nodded, serious. I didn't want no trouble, either. "But what'll I tell Mom about not coming to baby-sit? She'll be awful suspicious."
"Honey, that's a snap." Joe was getting impatient with me, so I knew he was nervous. "Mrs. Curtis is taking off for a vacation for two or three weeks, that's all."
"Joe, it's gonna be awful!" I threw myself on him, hating to admit I might not even be seeing Joe. Not to have him love me, maybe never again.
"We can't stay around here." Joe took me by the shoulders and held me off. "I may be all wet about the cops chasing us through phone messages, but let's don't take chances. Get your gear together and let's clear out."
I went back home and told Mom Mrs. Curtis bought the mink stole because she wanted to take it with her to Florida to wear at the hotel. I said her husband was taking her down there for a week or two.
It was terrible, being stuck again like I used to be. Going to school, coming home, hanging around the house. I didn't get a kick anymore out of hanging around with the kids down at the candy store. They were just dumb kids. Not even Carmen looked so hot to me now. Not after knowing Arline. Carmen was a floozy. The way she always dressed and all that make-up loaded on her face-Joe called it advertising. "Come on, guys, throw me on my back." That's what girls like Carmen looked like, Joe said.
I phoned Joe every night at his hotel and it was crazy the way we talked about nothing. I could feel how Joe was afraid to say anything but silly things that didn't mean nothing. He wouldn't even meet me somewhere so we could see each other. The first week was terrible. By the end of the second I was outta my mind. I got used to too many things I couldn't have now. Money and excitement and Joe. Mostly it was Joe. I couldn't sleep nights for thinking about him. Then, just when I was ready to flip my lid, he told me to come on up to his hotel.
Mom was glad I was going up to Mrs. Curtis' again. She'd been missing that extra dough for beers and movies, things like that. And she missed me feeding her stories about Mrs. Curtis.
"You tell Mrs. Curtis I hope she had a nice trip, Lana," Mom called after me when I was going down the stairs. "Yeah, Mom."
My heart was beating a blue streak thinking about Joe. I wore my white cashmere sweater and the plaid skirt I bought with my last money and the beige leather jacket Arline gave me because she said it did nothing for her red hair. Last time I wore it, Joe said I looked like a young rich-bitch from some snooty finishing school until I started up with my Brigitte Bardot wiggle. The sweater was plain and fit sort of loose down to the hips but with me in it, Joe sizzled. At least, he used to. Would he still want me the way he did before? Or had he found himself a new baby? I kept worrying about it all the way to his hotel.
I walked into the hotel where Joe was staying. It was a dive. Some jerk tried to pick me up in the elevator. It made me nervous. Suppose somebody said something about me going up to Joe's room? I'd heard about hotel detectives and all. Joe'd told me to come right upstairs, so it must be okay, I decided. Joe was real careful most of the time. I knocked on the door, making sure first I had the right room number.
"Lana?" Just hearing Joe say it gave me that funny feeling in my stomach.
"Yeah, Joe?"
He flung the door open and pulled me inside. His bed was unmade and he looked like he'd been packing, the way the suitcases were laying across the chair.
"Joe, you ain't going away?" My eyes musta told him how scared I was because he came right over and pulled me to him.
"No, doll, I'm not going away. I'm moving into another apartment. A classy joint this time. Wait'll you see it!"
"Where?" This must mean everything was okay again, I figured, busting with joy.
"Over near Park, not far from Arline's." He was feeling good about it, too. "In a mood to resume our partnership?" he asked me, grinning.
"You bet!" I flung my arms around his neck. "Oh, Joe, I been going stir crazy. Nothing but school and Mom and the kids every day!"
"You must have gone out on dates?" Joe was watching me.
"Not even once," I insisted fast. "Who wants to date kids? Not after you, Joe. I couldn't."
"Not sorry about going back to work?" He was kidding me, 'natch.
"I can't wait."
"Okay, so let's get you into practice."
Joe kissed me the way nobody but Joe kisses and while he did, he walked me back to the window so he could close the blinds. He kept my mouth busy with his mouth and his hands were driving me nuts. This was like old times-Joe teasing me, taking his time. Making me cry inside for him. First one thing off, and hands loving me, and then the next thing off and more loving.
"Been a long time, baby," he whispered when there was nothing left to take off. He pushed me back onto the bed and in the dark I heard his clothes hit the floor.
"Oh, Joe, I missed you something awful!" I was practically clawing at his back but we didn't care-Joe or me.
Joe kissed me again to shut me up. He always kidded me about being the noisy type, but I knew he loved it. When he got me going like this, I didn't care what I did.
Then somebody knocked at the door. Joe swore and flipped himself over onto the floor. He put his finger to his lips for me to be quiet.
"Joe?" It was a man. "Hey, Joe, open up." The guy knocked a few times more. Then he went away.
"A jerky bookie I know," Joe whispered. He stretched out on the bed again and reached for a cigarette. "We'll wait a few minutes, be sure he's gone, then I'll take you over to our new apartment."
He said, "our apartment". Boy, that sounded sensational! I couldn't wait to get over there. I kept trying to imagine what kinda place it was. All the time we were getting dressed, then going down in the elevator and out into a cab, I kept hearing Joe say "our apartment". That meant we belonged together. We were partners.
When Joe opened the door to the apartment, I practically dropped dead. This was as fancy as Arline's.
"I rented it for Joseph and Lana Evans," Joe was explaining. "You're my sister, see? You go to school up in Westchester, so you come home weekends and maybe once or twice during the week." He put his suitcase down and stared about, just about busting the buttons off his jacket he was so proud of the place. "Some stuff, huh?"
"It's terrific." I unfroze from shock finally, so I could run about inspecting everything. "Joe, how many rooms?" It looked so big.
"Four," Joe grinned. "Two bedrooms. One for Joe and one for his sister, get it? Yours is the one with all the mirrors."
I went off through the door Joe pointed to. The bed was the biggest thing I ever laid eyes on and it had this blue satin spread with drapes that matched hanging straight across a whole wall. The wall facing the bed was practically covered with mirrors.
"Joe, how'd you get it?" I still couldn't believe this was ours.
"A girl I know. She went to California with some character who's keeping her. She said we might as well use the furniture and stuff till she comes back, so long as we pay the rent."
"When's she coming back?" My face musta showed how disappointed I was because Joe laughed.
"Baby, it might not be for two years. Six months, anyhow. She told the landlord she was going out to Hollywood to do a picture so she was subletting to me and my sister while she'd be away. That's so nobody starts snooping around and asking questions."
"It must be awful expensive." I wished I could stay here forever. It was like I was Cinderella, only I kept going back to my kitchen regular.
"Costs the U.S. Mint." Joe slung himself across the bed in what he said was my room, as if it was nothing more than that old unmade bed in the hotel. "Takes a lotta clients to pay for this."
"You sure it's okay?" I asked, worrying again.
"Leave it to Joe. I'll keep the clients coming. You stay as good as you've been and we'll have a even better joint than this. Go on, look around," he teased me for being so wide-eyed. "Nothing's going to disappear. Oh, the phone comes in tomorrow."
"Everything's okay about the answering service?" I remembered to ask him. I'd read about it in the papers for two or three days, then it just died out.
"Yeah, we're in the clear. From now on, I take calls personally, right here."
"How can you, when you're working all day?" I got giggly, thinking of me putting in a phone at home.
"New angle, baby," Joe explained it to me. "Clients call nightly six to seven or before nine in the morning. That way I'm around. See?"
"Whatever you say." Joe was smart all right. He always figured an angle.
"Buy yourself a notebook, Lana." Joe sat upright, talking business. "Write down the day and the time, nothing else in case you lose the book. We don't want to mess up on your schedule. We're starting off great, too. Tomorrow night and the next all set. Friday and Saturday-you write it down in that notebook you're buying. Tomorrow night's a special. A big job. Arline and you with this guy. Right here."
I thought I must be hearing wrong. "Arline and me? At the same time?"
'Yeah." Joe smiled as if this was nothing. "What's the dif if the guy's willing to pay? Like I told you, this is real special. I'm gonna be on the job, too."
I nearly lost my breath. 'What do you mean?"
"I told you, baby, this is a special job. He's paying five hundred bucks just for one night. I'm going to sit right over in that chair and wait till it's all over to collect."
I could feel myself turning red. "Joe, I can't! Not Arline and me both-and you sitting right there. I can't!"
"Baby, we need that five hundred." Joe pulled me down into his lap. "You won't louse up on Joe, will you? How can I pay the rent on this fancy joint if we don't take the dough fast?"
"But it sounds so screwy!" I was ready to bawl but Joe laughed like I'd said something funny. I remembered hearing Carmen talk about something like this once and how it made me kinda sick.
"So the guy's a character, what do you care if he's willing to pay for his kicks? And with me right here, he won't start up too rough. He's a real wack-he plays games, see? He wants me to sit there with a camera and make like I'm shooting a movie. He's the star and Arline and you are his two leading ladies."
"He's off his rocker!" I couldn't imagine anybody being so way out.
"Sure, but with dough. Five hundred bucks, baby, for one night."
"That's a lot," I admitted, thinking how it was like I was a TV star, being paid so much.
Joe looked as if he was trying to figure out something. "Better tell your old lady you're staying over for Mrs. Curtis. We might not get through till three or four." '
"Okay, Joe, if you think it's all right," I said. I felt funny inside. I was wondering now, did Joe ever do it with Arline? Was that why she didn't mind him being there? I got this nutty feeling inside, thinking about Arline and Joe together. I didn't like it none.
From now on, I made up my mind, I was gonna keep my eyes open. I'd found out about Arline and Joe.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
When I got to the apartment for our "special" client, Arline was already there. She was lying flat on her stomach in a robe and I could see she didn't have nothing on under it. Joe was over at the bar mixing each of them a drink.
"Drink, doll?" Joe asked me.
"No," I said real cold. I didn't like seeing him and Arline so awful cozy.
"Might be good for you to stay sober," Arline flipped. "You're gonna need good eyesight, Joey boy."
Both of them bust out laughing, but Joe set down the bottle anyway.
Arline's awful smart. She took one look at me and she knew what was eating me up. She got up to her feet and started off for the bathroom. "I'm going in to shower. We've got plenty of time yet. I'm taking a long, noisy shower, kids. Okay?" She winked and went off into the bathroom. I felt sort of ashamed for being so jealous.
"You better get into that robe, too," Joe was all of a sudden business-like. "Nothing under it. That's the way the client wants it."
I went to my room and stripped in front of the mirror. I stared at myself, wondering how I'd stack up beside Arline. Then I remembered how Joe said once she was old enough to be my mother. She was built great-but I was young. That made the difference.
"Don't waste that, baby." Joe was standing in the doorway. "You get any more sexy, they'll have to keep you in a steel tent."
He came over and stood behind me, looking over my shoulder into the mirror, his hands working, that old glint in his eyes. I didn't need to worry none about Joe. He was making who he went for plain enough, the way he was pressed up against my back.
"Joe, I feel so funny about this job." I wished I could make him understand.
"Baby, stop it." He turned me around to face him. "When this guy comes and he starts with you, make like it's old Joe. It's important for us. You tell yourself you're nuts about him. I don't want phony faking today. Play like it's real."
"Okay." I was the same as always. I'd do whatever Joe asked me to. "But I wish you wouldn't stand around watching. Just thinking about it gives me the creeps."
"I'll be looking into that camera, the way I told you. It's as if I was watching a movie, that's all."
The doorbell rang. Joe went to answer and I put my robe back on and went into the living room. Arline was coming out of the shower.
"For Mama's bank account," Arline grinned and threw herself into a chair, waiting for Joe to stop yapping with the guy out in the foyer and bring him inside.
"Girls, this is Rick. Rick, Arline's the gorgeous redhead and the black-haired doll is Lana."
"A pleasure." Rick inspected both of us so close you'd think he was paying for us by the pound. "You weren't lying, Joe." He gave him a little hand salute.
"This the gadget?" Joe asked, taking the box Rick held.
"Yeah, that's my prop." Rick laughed and winked at Joe. I guess he felt sort of self-conscious about this crazy set-up.
Joe unwrapped the box and took out the camera. Then he let Rick give him a line about how it worked and the best light angles and all that crap. You'd think he was shooting a Hollywood movie. Joe told me before this was how Rick always did it, pretending the camera was loaded and he was a big-shot Hollywood actor making a million dollar movie.
"Okay, let's go to work," Rick said, taking off his pants.
I sat there with Joe and Arline, pretending this didn't bother me none, while that character took off everything but his socks. I couldn't figure why he left them on when he took off his shoes. He was about medium height and built okay. Not as swell as Joe and he wasn't so good-looking but he was a hell of a lot better than most of the clients.
"Now you gals just relax and enjoy yourselves," Rick said, gazing about the room. I got this silly idea maybe he was gonna take himself a nap first. Then he said, "Okay, Red, shall we dance?"
"I hear the music," Arline flipped. She got up and threw off the robe. "Where do you want the body?"
"Right over here, Gorgeous." He sat down on the big sofa and sprawled against the back. "Walk over to me like you were Cleopatra trying to make the King of Egypt. Come on, baby, get across to me."
I sat and watched. I couldn't take my eyes off them. I never seen anybody doing it.
Arline wiggled over to him, bouncing up and down in front and her rear swinging like it was a saloon door. And the way she moved her legs was an open invitation. When she was almost at the sofa, he got up and dragged her close. Anybody could see he was all steamed up already. Arline was acting like she was nuts about him. She kept pawing him all over, same as he was doing to her. Then he pushed her back onto the sofa and got down to business. This guy was funny. Most of them talk all the time, but Rick wasn't saying nothing, just kept working away.
Joe moved in close with that dead camera, and after a while he said, "Okay, I got it wrapped up," like he was a Hollywood director. But Rick stayed with her a couple minutes more before he got up, and while he did, Joe sent me a grin. I guess he meant to say Arline was making out great.
Arline sat up and crossed her legs. Rick reached over to uncross. them, then slid down to his knees. Joe kept dancing around, practically on top of them. Joe told me this was what got Rick excited, knowing he had that fake camera so close.
Rick lifted up his head. "What are you wearing, Red? Steel spikes?" He rubbed his back where she'd dug in with her heels.
"Honey, I'm sorry." Arline put her arms around him and kissed him. The way they went at it, it was like each one was trying to swallow the other.
Joe stayed right there, talking to them so low I couldn't even hear. I was wishing he'd throw down that lousy camera and come over to me. Something inside me was beating away, begging Joe to forget all about Rick and Arline and love me.
Joe suggested a couple different positions and Rick and Arline were all for it.
Joe winked and grinned at me as if he was having a ball himself.
Joe signaled for me to come over. I pulled off the robe and went over. Rick was too busy to notice when Joe stopped messing with that camera. He put the thing on the sofa where it couldn't get broke, and gave me the wandering hands treatment. I was wondering if he was going nuts or something, with the client right there. Joe musta forgot, because in a couple minutes Rick picked himself up and stood watching us.
"Hey, who told you to get into the act?" He made like it was a joke but his eyes looked sore.
"Warming her up for you, Rick. She's all yours now, boy."
Rick grabbed, real rough. "Baby doll, you don't need warming, the way you look to me." He bit me and I yelped. "That's just testing," he soothed, and pushed me back on the sofa.
Arline went to sit in the chair while he went through his bag of tricks with me. I remembered what Joe said-make it look real. It wasn't so hard, after having to sit and watch for so long. I closed my eyes and said to myself, "This is Joe". Not that I had to-right now any guy was Joe. I never knew it'd set me off so crazy the way it did. Rick was a rough customer but I didn't even care-all I wanted was for him not to stop.
"Baby, you're a wildcat!" Rick laughed. "You're my gold mine and I'm prospecting till I hit pay dirt!"
"Hey, Rick, you got another claim over here, remember?" Joe reminded him. "What about Red?"
Rick got up off the floor and fell onto the sofa, looking as tired as if he'd been digging ditches for twelve hours.
"How about some liquid refreshment?" Rick asked. "The girls won't mind a coffee break." He hit himself on the thigh and laughed fit to bust.
"Sure it won't slow you down?" Joe kidded, but he was off at the liquor cabinet for the drinks already.
"Nothing slows down Rick," he told Joe. "Give me a straight Scotch, double."
"Coming right up."
Joe gave Rick his drink, then he fixed one for Arline and me. It was hard not to break down and laugh. With the three of us in our birthday suits and Joe all dressed except for his jacket, it was like he was a waiter in a nudist camp. I wondered what was gonna be next. I didn't have to wonder long.
"Come on, you broads, let's have some action!" Rick finished his drink, slapped his hands together and grinned.
Arline walked over, nothing fazing her. I got up and sorta wandered over to where he was standing.
"How do you want it, lover?" Arline posed in front of him, her arms on her hips.
He told her and Rick waited till she was ready. Then he joined her and called to me, "Okay, doll, move in close." I did what he said, not thinking too clear with that drink in me. "Closer!" he yelled and pulled at my legs till he was satisfied with where I stood. "That's it, doll. Now for some action!"
It was screwy, him working away on both of us, and Joe buzzing around like a mosquito with that phony camera.
Rick stopped for a minute. "What's the matter, doll? Don'tcha like it?"
"Sure, you're sensational!" I said fast. "Don't stop, honey, unless you want me to go jumping through the window."
I grabbed hold of his head and pulled on his hair, showing him I wanted him to keep on. Funny thing, all of a sudden I did! I couldn't stand it if he stopped now! When he did, I pulled his head back.
"Take it easy, you overheated little bitch!" He laughed at me and straightened up anyway.
I flung myself against him, not even caring that Joe was standing right there. Joe wasn't giving me anything-all he wanted to do was make sure this guy paid off.
"Slow down, honey, all in good time," Rick said, tickled to death the way I was acting-only it wasn't acting. "Here, let's switch."
I wasn't the only one going crazy. Rick was having it bad. He forgot about Arline after a couple minutes and him and me went wild together. Then he got up as if it was nothing and looked around for something to wipe the perspiration off his face. Joe threw him a towel. I didn't even move for a few minutes. I wasn't thinking anymore-just feeling.
Rick reached for a pillow, stretched out with it under his head. "Okay, you big, beautiful dolls, come and get me." He held up his arms to me, so I sat down on the floor next to him. I wasn't sure what he was after. Arline's smart. She knew he wanted us both to kiss him. After a few minutes, I could tell just from his breathing he was all worked up again. I never saw a guy like this one!
"Okay, dolls, switch."
Arline and me changed positions. It was the wildest thing because Joe was down on the floor, too, with that lousy camera and all the time I could see him outta the corner of my eye. I thought I was having hallucinations when I saw him put the camera down and start throwing off his clothes.
"Okay, Rick, cut!" he said loud and picked me right up from Rick.
Arline stared up, sort of surprised, but Rick didn't act sore. He just pulled Arline down and said, "Okay, Red, let's you and me play."
"Come on, baby, come on!" Joe kept saying and I coulda died with this crazy feeling inside me.
"Joe, Joe, Joe!" I kept screeching his name over and over until we both slid into a heap on the floor. I hadn't seen nothing like this before. It was the wildest night ever!
Joe left with Rick, saying he'd be back later. I was sleeping over. It was kinda fun being alone in the apartment with Arline. She put on her panties and bra and I did the same, then we sat around in the kitchen talking while we waited for the coffee she'd put up to perc. It was like we were at a house party or maybe in a college sorority house, like in the movies. I didn't think about Arline being as old as Mom. She didn't act as if she was.
"This is what I call a good night's work, honey." She stuck her feet up on another chair. Then she was looking at me sharp. "Say, baby, I hope you're being smart."
"What do you mean?" Did she mean about keeping Mom off my tail, or was it something to do with Joe. I remembered how she was sitting around with him when I came in. "Whatcha talking about, Arline?"
"Money, kid. So you're young now, but the way you're going at it, you'll wear yourself out in five years."
"What about money?" Wasn't it terrific enough, the way it was coming in?
"You're just beginning to taste the big dough. With your looks and your age, it'll pile in with this set-up. Start stashing it away, Lana. Save up so you can get out when you're good and sick of it with enough cash to set yourself up in some nice little store."
"I never thought about that."
The way I figured, this was gonna go on forever. No, I was lying-I just didn't think about later. I had lots of time. I wasn't practically an old lady like Arline.
Arline went over for the percolator and started to pour. "I would have been out long ago if it wasn't for my high expenses. I'm putting two brothers through medical school. That comes high these days."
"You got two brothers going to college?" I don't know why but that was some big surprise to me.
"Sure." Arline's face got all soft and fulla love. "Two of the sweetest kids in the world. How else could I put them through college? And in another year I'll be through paying for a two-family house out in Brooklyn. Mom lives downstairs and my older sister and her three kids upstairs. Her husband don't do too well and with five mouths to feed, it's no picnic for Millie."
"You own a house, too?" All of a sudden I was thinking of what I could do for Mom and the kids. Up to now it was like a swell game, nothing like putting kids through college and buying houses. "You got enough money for that?"
"Sit down with a piece of paper and pencil, baby. Start adding it up."
"Golly!" I wasn't a kid no more. I could make as much money, almost, as if I was in the movies!
"Put away part of each take." Arline was all warmed up over giving me advice. "Find yourself a spot nobody knows, not even Joe, and you salt it away until you got a large chunk. Then take yourself to the bank."
"Maybe Mom and me could open up a shop. A dress shop or something."
"Why not?" Arline went along with it. "I tell you what, you start with a shop and I'll take you around to the manufacturers, see they give you a break. I know most of them."
"You mean it?" Boy, wouldn't that be something? Mom and me owning a shop. No more Welfare-and no more babies, I'd make Mom understand. Not unless she got herself a husband first.
"You won't do it overnight, understand, kid, but you keep putting away twenty bucks and fifty bucks and before you know it, it's some wad!"
"I'm gonna do it, Arline. Honest!" I was popping with excitement.
"I better climb into my clothes and get out of here." Arline swigged down the rest of her coffee. "I got a late date with a guy taking his wife to a nightclub for their anniversary. He figures he can take her home around one. Then he takes the dog for a walk. Tonight that French poodle gets herself a real long airing." Arline winked and went off into the bathroom for her clothes.
When Arline left, I just loafed around. It felt swell being in this sensational apartment all by myself, reminding myself it was mine. I wondered what was keeping Joe. I knew he had to go with the guy to collect, but why was it taking him so long? I stretched out on the sofa, with the radio playing some terrific records, and I started looking at the pile of movie magazines I'd bought when I came over today. I'll bet there wasn't a movie magazine printed I didn't buy. I never did know what time Joe came home because I fell asleep waiting.
When I woke up, Joe was sitting across the room, drinking. This was the first time I ever got so mad at Joe. I picked up my shoe and threw it at him. It caught him right on the chin. Then I reached for something else to throw.
CHAPTER TWELVE
"What's the matter, you gone crazy?" he yelled, dodging the heavy glass ashtray I threw and rubbing his chin where I'd hit him with my shoe.
"You got some nerve!" I yelled back, sore because he went off and left me all night. I could see daylight through the blinds already. And sore because he was drinking. I kept remembering how he told me when fellas drink, they don't know what they're doing.
"What do you mean?" He was looking at me like he was scared.
"Running out and letting me wait up all night for you!" Then I saw lipstick smeared around his neck and I flipped. "You been running around with some floozy. I'm just for making money for you, that's all. You don't care what happens to me." All of a sudden, I started to bawl.
"Oh, baby, that's not true. I don't go for anybody but you. Don'tcha know that by now?"
He put his arms around me and kissed me, all the time telling me how he was nuts about me and everything he did was so I could have all the nice things I wanted. He was even gonna surprise me with a mink stole! When Joe carried on this way I couldn't stay mad. By the time we hit the bed, I was crying because I hit him with my shoe.
That new apartment was our good luck charm, Joe said all the time. We never had it so good, with clients set days ahead. This was like being a model, with that red notebook I bought all loaded up with dates and times. Only one trouble was always popping up. No matter how I tried to talk to Joe, he didn't take me serious. He fixed up too many calls during school hours, so now I was playing hooky almost as much as I went to school. And when I went, I didn't know what I was doing. How could I do high school homework riding back and forth on the subway? I couldn't tell a guy, hurry up because I gotta English test tomorrow!
The teachers tried talking to me but I wiggled out each time. They knew about Mom and the houseful of kids, so I used that for having to be out so much. When we got through our mid-term exams, I flunked every class! Mom was sore as hell. Thank goodness she didn't know about me playing hooky half the time. Not for a while she didn't.
The minute I saw the lights all shining in the living room that way, I knew Mom was wise to something. I climbed the stairs, trying to figure out how much she knew and how to calm her down. One thing sure, no matter what she threatened, she wasn't gonna break up Joe and me and the clients. I wouldn't let her.
I opened the door and walked through the kitchen, soft so I wouldn't wake Grandma. Mom was standing right in the middle of the living room, the couch not even made up, and she was mad enough to blow the ceiling off.
"You tramp! You dirty little tramp!" And then Mom let out with the kinda talk I never heard before except from guys. There wasn't nothing she didn't call me.
"You're crazy!" I kept yelling back because I was scared she'd pick up a chair and hit me any minute. "I didn't do nothing."
"So that's why I get a visit from the truant officer today. I gotta stop using my daughter for a servant! She's gotta go to school! That's what they thought at the school-I was keeping you home to take care of the kids."
"I got sick of going to school," I babbled, searching around, seeing now she wasn't wise to everything. " I hate it. What good'll it do me anyhow?"
"The law says you go to school!" Mom slapped me across the mouth so hard I nearly went on my face.
"They're nuts," I bawled.
"What bums you been running around with? They know you're only fifteen? They get a long stretch in jail for messing around with a kid fifteen years old!"
"I just been going to the movies, that's all. I got sick of sitting in school. I wasn't learning anything. So I went to the movies."
"You been holding out on your baby-sitting money," Mom guessed. "Using it to treat yourself to the movies three or four times a week."
"What's so awful about that?" Mom wasn't on to me-that much was good.
"First, you ain't going to anymore. Second, you're lyin' to your mother. Both gotta stop, you hear?"
"Okay, Mom. I promise." I was so tired from all the battling I fell onto a chair.
"I catch you lyin' again, you'll be sorry, Lana. I'm warnin' ya."
"Yeah, Mom, yeah."
She kept ranting on for the next half hour. I guess everybody in the house knew what was goin' on. The kids woke up and Grandma came in and told Mom to cut it out before somebody called the cops. People were shouting out the windows for us to shut up.
I told Joe everything that happened with Mom. He didn't like it but he knew we'd have to slow down if we wanted to stay outta trouble. No more day calls except on weekends, he promised me. I just hoped he'd stick to it , Everything was going along calm enough for a few weeks. I even tried to do better in school to keep the teachers off my neck. It gave Joe a laugh to see me squeezing in homework till the client came up. He thought it was a terrific joke.
I got into the habit of bringing Mom a bottle of perfume or a box of candy sort of regular, saying Mrs. Curtis sent them. This helped a lot to keep her in a good mood. When I got sick of seeing her in her beat-up winter coat, I went out and bought her one of those phony furs she was so nuts about, saying Mr. Curtis was in the business so he brought a sample home as a present for me, only it was too big. Mom was only two sizes bigger'n me, so this worked out swell. Mom went wild over that coat. The next week, when Joe said he had a daytime client, I told him to go ahead and set it up. It wouldn't hurt none for me to play hooky once in a while, not so long as Mom was feeling good.
I left the house as if I was going to school and then ducked into the subway to head for the apartment. Joe'd already left for the showroom and the client wasn't coming in till noon, so I had time to lie around and read. I was all wrapped up in a story about Brigitte Bardot and her baby when the phone rang.
"Hello." I didn't like to answer the phone in case Mom ever got ideas and tried to check on me, but I figured maybe it was the client and he'd lost the address.
"Lana?" It was Arline.
"Yeah, it's me. I got a date for noon," I explained why I was at the place so early.
"Look, I'm half out of my mind. I made a contact this morning for another of those fancy deals. Remember the movie bit?" Sure.
"Well, this guy wants a fast okay and I can't reach Joe no place."
"Why don't you call him at Adorable? He's always in till lunch time," I reminded her. Golly, Arline oughta know that. She was in and out of Adorable all the time.
"Are you kidding?" Arline sounded so surprised. "Joe quit three weeks ago. Didn't he tell you?"
"No." I was so shocked I couldn't think straight. "Don't let on you told me," I added fast. I wanted to think about this., "What kinda line has that bum been handing you?" Arline sounded sore.
"He didn't say nothing," I was honest about it. "Just let me think he was still at the showroom."
"With all the dough you two been raking in?" Arline laughed. "But let's get back to this deal. The guy wants to set it up for tonight. Same as the last time. Five thousand for me, the same for Joe and you. Even splitting with him, you're doing great."
"Five thousand?" For a minute it didn't hit, then I nearly dropped my teeth. "Five thousand bucks? ... For Joe and me?"
"What'd Joe tell you he got last time?" Arline wanted to know. "That no-good pimp!"
"Five hundred. I thought that was swell."
"For doing it for movies, are you kidding?"
Everything smacked me between the eyes now. "Joe was taking real moving pictures? He told me it was a nutty game the client liked. He never told me he was taking movies." I was burning. "Arline, why didn't you tell me?"
"Joe said it'd make you nervous, so he wouldn't let on till afterwards. That no good louse! Listen kid, you want to go through with this deal tonight? I have to let the character know."
"Yeah," I said right away. "I'll tell Joe you called up about making a movie and I didn't think he'd mind, so I said okay. This time I'll tell him how much, so he won't be so smart."
"Yeah, kid. We'll do it at your place again, all right? I gotta date late this afternoon. Afterwards he likes to sleep it off at my joint."
"What time?" I'd have to go home, make as if I was coming from school, then head for "Mrs. Curtis" later.
"Eight sharp. See you then." Arline hung up.
I was ripping wild when I thought about Joe lying to me. Five thousand bucks! I shoulda had half of that. Right now I was saving, the way Arline warned me to do. I hid it, in tens and twenties, under the rug in the bedroom I used. I'd push it way under so nobody'd guess. When the tens and twenties got to be a hundred, I'd go to the bank and change it into a hundred. Hundred dollar bills didn't take no space at all.
The client came in then so I had to be sweet and "honey" him all over the joint and make with the regular noises about how sensational he was and how with him it was a treat. When he put on his clothes and got out, I dressed and started back for home. I couldn't wait to see Joe's face when I told him about tonight. I left him a note, in case he came in. He was supposed to be at the phone by six for calls.
When I got through with everything at home and traveled back to the apartment again, I was ready for anything with Joe. The more I thought about him, the madder I got. I felt funny, too, about Joe taking movies of us doing everything. Suppose we saw somebody in the street who'd seen that movie? But if they looked at that kinda picture, I suppose they wouldn't think it was so terrible to be doing it. They might even get a kick outta meeting me personal-kind of like I was a movie star.
When I opened the door, I saw Joe stretched out on the sofa.
"Hi ya, Lana. What's this special deal?" He looked awful curious.
"It's for tonight," I started and Joe jumped like he'd been shot.
"Here?"
"Yeah. Another movie," I said, looking him straight in the eye. "Arline says they'll give us five thousand for this one, too. Five thousand for her, and five for us."
Joe caught on quick. "Baby, I didn't want to tell you-" he started off.
"I noticed!" I spit it at him.
"I've been in awful trouble. You know how bad we needed dough to set us up here. It took more'n I let on to you, baby. I got in with the loan sharks and they're tough customers. I tried to make some fast dough playing poker and with the bookies, only that went sour, too. I was in a tough spot."
"You didn't have to lie to me! You coulda told me." That's what hurt most, having Joe he to me.
"I didn't want you to know what I was up against. I didn't want you to worry. I took that five grand and bailed myself out." He came over and put his arms around me in the old way. "You wouldn't want to see your Joe on the wrong end of a gun, would you?"
"They were gonna kill you?" I grabbed him, scared to death even to think about it.
"They don't play gentle," Joe said, soft. "It was pay up or they'd collect their way. It doesn't just happen in TV and the movies like that. It's for real with these creeps."
"Oh, Joe, don't ever do that again. Please, Joe!" I was nearly bawling. "No more, honey. I'm through with all that crap."
"You swear, Joe?"
"Sure." Then he was quiet a second. "Only I have to cough up another four thousand before I'm all clear. After that, they won't ever see me again."
"You still have to give them four thousand?" I was shaking inside, knowing Joe was still in to them for so much. Then I remembered tonight. "Pay 'em off. Take the money from tonight and pay 'em off!" I couldn't stand to think of Joe being chased by a bunch of gangsters, having them pump him full of bullets. It was terrible!
"Okay, kid, if you want it that way." He patted me on the face. "Then we can sit back and breathe easy. Now, what time you expect this mob?" I knew what he was thinking, the way he was moving in to me.
"We can't, honey. They'll be here any minute." But I rubbed up against him in that cat-way he was nuts about to let him know I was sorry about getting so mad. So he'd know I wanted him worse than ever.
Arline came first, then the two guys. The one who was gonna do it with us and the fella with the camera. Arline introduced them to Joe and they got real friendly. These guys didn't waste time. The big one, a blond name Al, stripped before the guy with the camera even finished his drink. You could see he got a kick out of this.
"Hi ya, infant." He reached over and massaged my fanny with both hands.
"Hi ya, grandpop," I said, cold, taking his hands off. "I'm strictly professional." That was so Joe Wouldn't get ideas.
"Hey, Joe, something great just hit me. We can make this a real sellout. Wanta play?"
Joe put down his drink. "For how much?"
The guy thought a minute. "Another grand."
"Tonight," Joe put it flat. "When we finish, I want it on the table."
"Okay. You get it tonight," the guy-by now I found out his name was Ward-promised Joe.
"What's the shooting schedule?" Joe asked, throwing off his clothes.
"The works. First, the routine deal. Two pairs working the same time."
"Okay, let's shoot it." Al was itching to get started.
"Yeah, let's," Joe argeed and grabbed me.
Al shrugged his shoulders and went over to Arline.
Joe wasn't even waiting for the cameras. This was like him and me was all alone, I forgot about ever being mad at him. Joe didn't care who was around-he was talking a blue streak all the time he was loving me and I kept on yelling for more. When he got up, I tried to grab him back.
"Later, Lana baby," he said and nodded to where Arline and Al sat on the floor grinning at us.
"Okay," Ward was ordering like he was on a Hollywood set. "Joe, take a rest. I want the girls and Al-and I want the works."
He meant it, too. We tried every way he could think of-and he didn't miss nothing. And then he told Joe to join the party. I heard Arline talking once about Hollywood parties that went on for three or four days and everybody did it, got drunk, sobered up, and did it again, another way. I guess this was like a Hollywood party. I was ready to scream my head off. Arline looked beat, though. Joe was looking pooped, too, I noticed, surprised.
That Al was a riot. There he stood, ready for action again. I wouldn'ta minded if Ward said for Al and me to go ahead. But he had different ideas.
"Al, we want this to be a well-rounded movie," he laughed. "Complete the course. Al, I want you to take on Joe.
I sat there, my eyes glued to Al and Joe. Ward told them just what he wanted-and they did it. I practically fell on my face when he pointed to me.
"Okay, baby, you and Red."
"Huh?" I was kinda shook up.
"What's the difference?" Ward grinned. "Close your eyes and she's Joe or Al."
"Not to me!" Arline giggled. She got up and walked over to the sofa, nodding to me to come on over.
I never did anything like this before-I mean, not with a girl. I felt funny, specially with Joe watching us. Arline was wise; she knew just what Ward was after. It was crazy how the fellas watched us so close. I could tell Joe was getting all worked up just seeing us. Like thinking, what a waste!
For what Ward called his "Hollywood finale", he had the four of us going together. It was the weirdest thing I ever could imagine.
Ward paid us off right there, in cash. Sixteen thousand bucks! It made me dizzy just to see him shelling it out. Five thousand a piece to Arline and Al, six thousand for Joe and me. I never seen so much dough in my whole life.
"Anybody feel like a drink? I could bring up a few bottles," Al said, ready to make a night of it.
"We're expecting company," Joe told him, cold, and the others took the hint and blew.
"Not a bad haul, huh, baby?" Joe was sure satisfied with himself. Then he picked out ten one hundred dollar bills and handed 'em over to me. "Yours, Gorgeous. Thanks for bailing me out from the bookies."
"Make sure you keep your nose clean," I warned, sounding to myself like somebody in one of those TV gangster programs.
I went off to the bedroom to put on my clothes. It was getting late now. First, though, I hid the thousand. I almost hated to put it away. I was nearly dressed when the doorbell rang.
"Who do you think that is?" Joe asked me with a funny gleam in his eye, and I thought about the bookies.
"How do I know?" I asked him. Joe was the one living here most, not me.
"Whoever it is, get rid of 'em," Joe said, and locked himself in the bathroom.
I wondered who it was Joe didn't want to see right now. Some of his gambling buddies? He'd looked kinda shook up when I told him about tonight and how it. was gonna be right here. He never expected me to be hanging around tonight. He'd swore to me he was through gambling and now maybe I catching him in his lie. The doorbell rang again, real mad rings.
I went to the door and flung it open. But when I tried to talk, nothing came out of my mouth. Standing in the doorway, big as life, was Mom!
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
"I been standing outside for an hour." Mom came inside and slammed the door behind her. "I was waiting for your friends to get outta here. You wasn't exactly quiet."
"What'd you do with Mark?" I was yapping about whatever came into my head. "You didn't go off and leave him with the kids?"
"I took him in to the Rafferty's. I said this was an emergency." She kept staring around, like she couldn't believe what she saw. "How long you been lying to me, you rotten little slut?" She came over and slapped me and I screamed. I hoped Joe wouldn't come running outta the bathroom. Mom musta thought I was alone. That's the way I wanted it to be. "How long you been taking on these crumbs? Don't they know with you it could send 'em up for a long stretch?"
"I said I was eighteen." What was the use pretending I didn't know what she was talking about? "And what's so terrible about what I done? What's so different with you? Maybe you can fool Rita and the little kids, but I ain't blind!"
"Don't you talk to me that way. I'm your mother!" Mom was wild.
"So what?" I was sore, too. "So we got a mother who didn't bother giving us a father! No one we could talk about at school or to the neighbors. What's so different with you doing it all the time and ending up with noth-thing but another kid? I'm the smart one. Me! I bought all those clothes I got! There ain't no Mrs. Curtis. I bought that fur coat you got on right now."
Mom sat down and tears were filling up her eyes. "All I wanted was a little fun, Lana-and some love. I didn't take money."
All of a sudden, watching Mom sit there crying, I felt like crying with her. "Mom, ain't it better my way?" I went over and took her hand. "This way it's smart. Soon you can tell the Welfare to go fly a kite. Well move into a swell apartment somewhere where nobody ever heard of us. You can say our Pop died in a accident or something, and we'll be just like everybody else."
"Lana baby, you're only fifteen!" Mom was trying hard to stop crying. "I didn't want you to go into something like this."
"I'm saving money, Mom," I talked low, so Joe couldn't hear me out in the bathroom. "Another year and I'll quit the racket. You and me can open up a dress shop. We'll have our own store. I got a friend who's gonna help us. A girl."
"Honey, I'm scared for you." Mom kept shaking her head. "You're heading for trouble."
"Stop worrying, Mom. You wait for me a couple minutes, I'll finish dressing and go home with you. Maybe we'll splurge and take a cab."
"I can't believe it, Lana. This place and everything." Mom kept looking around and then she saw the bottle of Scotch. "Drinking, too."
"That's for the client, Mom," I explained fast. "I don't like it-the stuff burns. But you go on have yourself a drink," I said, heading for the bedroom. "Get yourself some soda and a glass out in the kitchen." I stopped in front of the bathroom door, talking loud so Joe'd catch on. "You have your drink and I'll finish dressing. Then we take that cab home."
Before I turned out the bedroom light, I bent down and pulled back the rug. When I went out to Mom, I stuck a hundred dollar bill in her hands. I wasn't a little kid no more. I could see that in Mom's eyes when she took that bill from me and stuck it down her bra.
It was funny how different everything was at home now that Mom knew. It was like she was handing me the kid glove treatment. When the hundred bucks was gone, she let me know without coming right out and asking for more. I got the point. I handed over another hundred. Mom wanted to buy some new furniture but I told her she better wait. The Welfare'd get wise. I didn't want to take on supporting the family until Arline told me I had enough to open the shop. Suppose the cops moved in and we had to lay off for a while? I still remembered when that answering service got nabbed in the vice raid.
Joe swore to me he wasn't gambling but I didn't know if I oughta believe him. Not the way he was drinking these days. And then one night when I was cleaning up the place after a regular client left, I found a bill for a mink coat, stamped "PAID". Twenty-eight hundred bucks! I thought it was the client's and I got sore because he'd just been crying about me expecting so much money each time. Then I looked up above on the bill and saw the name and address. The bill was made out to Joe Evans. I didn't get no autumn haze mink coat from Joe!
I went tearing into Joe's room, looking for something else. Maybe he was buying the coat for me but I wanted some proof. I wasn't waiting around to see if Joe was gonna surprise me. I didn't have to look far. Joe had a envelope loaded with colored snapshots of some babe. She didn't have a stitch on and from the handwriting across the bottom, I could figure Joe took them. "To Joe, from your Blonde Bombshell," one of them said. Some of them were real dirty. I started to tear them right up into little pieces, then I changed my mind. I put the envelope back where I found it in the bottom of the closet. Then I went home.
I meant to go to school next morning. I wasn't even half a block away when I changed my mind. I was going over to the apartment and have it out with Joe. I couldn't stand waiting around. I guess deep inside I wanted him to make me believe it was nothing. I wanted him to tell me the pictures were for somebody else named "Joe"-and that he was keeping the mink coat as a surprise for me. That's what I was hoping even when I put the key in the door and pushed it open.
I could hear Joe talking in his bedroom. He had a extension in there so I figured he was on the phone-until I saw that autumn haze mink lying on the sofa. Then I didn't know which way to think. I threw off my coat and went into the bedroom. Joe was stretched across the bed tangled with this big bleached blonde. They were going at it so hard they didn't even know I was there till I grabbed hold of her hair and pulled her off.
"Get out! Get out of here, you stinking tramp!" I screamed. "Take your clothes and get out!" I picked up her things and threw them at her.
"Lana, take it easy!" Joe jumped off the bed, nodding to the blonde to beat it.
"Make that tramp get outta here!" I bawled. "Tell her to get out!"
The blonde was out in the living room, dressing like the devil was on her tail. She wasn't bothering with zippers or anything. I stood in the bedroom, shaking I was so sore, waiting for the door to slam behind her. I couldn't even stay in this room anymore-I ran into the room that was supposed to be mine. I don't know what made me look under the rug when Joe was out there whispering to that lousy blonde. I threw back the rug and saw nothing but floor. My eighteen hundred bucks was gone! Maybe to help pay for that autumn haze mink! I flung the rug back and went into the living room.
"Lana, honey," Joe came toward me now that we were all alone, "what you so worked up about? I had a few drinks and I met this broad I used to know. She had a fight with her boyfriend and she was feeling low-" Joe was fishing around, trying to make it sound good. "You know me when I drink too much. I closed my eyes and said, this is my Lana!"
"No, you didn't." I wasn't giving in this time. "You just want me for the dough. Somebody to satisfy the clients-that's all I mean to you!" All the time I thought it was me he was crazy about! And I was so proud because a guy like Joe could go for me.
"Baby, how can you say things like that after all the good times we had together? Don't you know you're the only one who drives me nuts?"
He put his arms around me and started to kiss me from my ear right down to the spot where my dress dipped at the neck. He was moving me back to the sofa now, stirring me up the way he always did. Letting me know already how much he wanted it. That's when I picked up the scissors from the end table and dug them right into Joe's back.
The Judge said because of my age and family background he was being lenient. I'm being sent up to the Girls Reformatory tomorrow-to stay there till I'm twenty-one. Joe's serving five years for what the court calls "impairing the morals of a minor".
I nearly die every time I think how I almost killed somebody. I got an awful lot to live down, but I'm gonna try hard. I hope to learn to be a beautician while I'm up in the reformatory. That's so I'll have a trade when they let me out. Mom's taking a beautician's course, too, at night. The Welfare's fixing it for her. I want to come out and be able to help Mom raise the kids right. Mom says no more kids, and I believe her. Not unless it's nine months after her wedding!
I wonder sometimes if I'll ever get married. Probably not. A guy'd have to be some kook to want to marry me after all this. I mean like the clients and then me trying to kill Joe. What man'd want to hook up with a broad like that? He'd always have to keep worrying maybe she's gonna go back to her old ways one of these days. And if we had a fight and I got real sore like I do sometimes, he'd get all shaky thinking I might be gonna reach for a knife or something like that and give him what I gave Joe.
I wouldn't though. I know that but how'd I convince a guy?
"Course, I could always go someplace real far away and maybe find someone who didn't know nothing about me and my family. All I'd havta do is keep my trap shut and he could think anything he wanted to about me, like that I was all sweet and dumb. But I don't think I could do that. The guy'd be sure to know something was fishy because there's something about me that shows I been through the wringer in more ways than six. I'm not saying I got "Girls Reformatory" or "Call Gir!" or "Attempted Murder" stamped across my forehead. What I mean is, something's changed inside.
It's like I'll never be able to do anything but laugh in his face when a man starts sweet talking me and treating me real nice the way Joe usedta.
So I'll stay in the cooler. It won't kill me, I'll live. Besides, only five years. I just remembered-Joe will be getting out around the same time. Well, there's a safe bet for you. You can put down everything you own I'll steer cleara that creep. Far as I'm concerned, if Joe's in New York I don't want to be anywhere closern California.
I'll give it to you straight: I ain't exactly looking forward to spending five years with a lot of stupid teen-age streetwalkers and small-change crooks. But I got this feeling, see, makes me feel better. Way I look at it, that Judge sentenced me to Girls Reformatory for a lot more than one reason. I think, what would I have done if I was in his place and I know I woulda done the same. See, I wasn't convicted just because I sold it and made those dirty movie and stuff like that. Reason he had to send me up was that I had spent fifteen years growing this nice body while the rest of me just stood there. I mean, I'm kinda dumb. Not because I don't do so good in school, but the way I don't think about nothing. Joe did all my thinking for me and I liked it fine. Only, his kind of thinking landed me where I am now.
And there's the way I got all hot and bothered about not having things like Carmen did. What's so hot about Carmen?
There's still a lotta stuff I wish I could buy. Guess I'll always be wanting nice clothes and stuff like the movie stars got. But now there's nothing I want so bad I'd do what I did again.
You know something? All that time while I was making dough and wearing all them pretty clothes and I was so nutsy about Joe I couldn't thinka nothing else, I didn't feel so good. All that time there was this little part of me that'd keep reminding me I was doing something dirty. Even Mom wouldn't do what I did. She only let herself go all the time accounta she liked her loving too much. She never did it with creeps like some of them I fooled with. She only did it with guys she liked and she never charged them for it. That was because she was getting her kicks too-not making with a big act like I did except when I was with Joe.
I didn't feel so good about Joe neither. I mean deep down. Not that I'd admit it. I'd pretend all the time that I thought it was swell him getting clients for me that way. But something inside me sometimes'd think it was sorta crummy.
And all that time I'd keep thinking something else, especially when Joe wasn't with me and I couldn't get to sleep right off. It'd be like one minute I'd be thinking how I was so happy with all the nice clothes to wear and that real gone apartment and money for anything I liked like getting cute clothes and stuff for Joanie and Mark and the girls. Then all of a sudden I'd be thinking something else. I'd be thinking about the men and some of the far out things I did with them and about how some of them were so old and ugly. I'd think of how I had to put up with all that because Joe said that way I was being smart. I'd think that he was right and I was a jerk for letting it get under my skin and how I'd probably ended up doing the same things with fellows my own age if I'da just gone on dating guys like Chuck. I'd think that what I was doing was real smart and I'd try to concentrate on that but there'd be like this voice screaming inside my head. And that voice kept screaming, "Bui I'm only fifteen!"
Anyway, so I'm going to have five years to think about these things and how I was so dumb and all, and when I get out I'll be twenty-one and maybe I'll have some sense.
The way it looks, Ma and mell be beauticians and well make good money between us. We can live okay and we can get nice things for the kids. What I'm counting on is that with things all changed they won't grow up dumb and all like me. It'd just kill me if little Joanie went and did something like I did. Rita, Liz and Debbie, too. I still can't think straight about Mark, him being the baby and the only boy. I'm just wild crazy about him. But if he grows up anywhere near like Joe or some other crooked wiseguy, I'll step in and teach him right from wrong if I have to kill him to do it.
Anyway, like I was saying way back before: I'm only thinking about doing for the kids and nothing else because I don't think any guy's dumb cluck enough to marry someone like me. But there's this social worker in the jail comes around and talks with me couple times a week. She says I'm dead wrong and that I'll understand about it when I'm older. She says there're lotsa guys don't hold it against a girl cause she got herself in trouble when she was almost too young to know better. This social worker says if I'm such a knockout now, then I'll get better as I get older and when I'm in my twenties I'll be such a looker I'll be chased by lotsa men. She says that some of them will be after only the usual thing but there'll be others who're so crazy nuts for me they'll be aching I should marry them-even though I was a call girl and went to prison and all that. This social worker says that with all those guys flipping over me there's sure to be at least one I flip for too. Then we'll get married and it'll be like nothing important ever happened before then we'll be so lovey and happy.
But it's kinda hard to believe. Could be, I guess. I don't know.
