Chapters 11 to 15
Chapter Eleven
Summer arrived, and high school ended for me forever. On graduation day, Mom, Dad, and Ramona got dressed to the nines and cane to the school auditorium to see Shortridge High’s Class of 1958 get our diplomas.
Two semi-circles of metal folding chairs were arranged on the auditorium stage and the seniors sat in those. Even though I was an “H” and Ernestine was an “N,” I still got to sit near her because I was near the end of the first row and the second row had to be severely curved because the papier-maché sewer pipes from the the school production of “Guys and Dolls” were still piled just in front of the rear curtain.
Our valedictorian was Clyde Shively, who was also President of Kiwanis Key Club. After he talked about hope, love of country, and God, we were ready for the formal address to the Graduating Class of 1958.
Our speaker was someone from the Rotary Club who quoted Dale Carnegie. I heard, from behind me, several large yawns from Ernestine. The speech was boring, but I knew Ernestine was also tired and sleepy. Her summer job had already started, and she was waitressing nights at a Mexican restaurant called The Villa. My folks hadn’t mentioned a summer job yet, but I was sure they were thinking about it.
The principal flipped the gold tassel to the other side of my mortarboard. Mom cried. I grinned like a fool, and happily left behind gym class, simultaneous equations, and horrible cafeteria food.
The day after graduation, I got to work on my suntan. I spent the morning sprawled on an extended lawn chair in the back yard. I laid mostly on my stomach, with a towel folded under my head so I wouldn’t get web marks on my face.
I was trying to summon the energy to turn over so I’d get equally done on both sides when I felt a hand on my back, Just below the strap of my bathing suit top. I squinted up to see Nancy grinning down at me.
“Hey,” she said, hands on hips.
“Hey.” I sat up. “What’re you doing here?”
“Even those of us subjected to higher education get a break now and then,” said Nancy. “I’m home for the summer. Working on our suntan, are we?”
“We are,” I said. “And we’re getting bored already. I can’t lie still long enough to get a tan. Every year I say I’m going to, and every August I’m still white as a sheet.”
“The secret is not to lie still,” said Nancy, smiling. “You’ve got to do something, like swim. Which is why I came over. Want to go swimming? My friends Ron and Eddie have a pond behind their house. We could go out there, if you want.”
I Jumped up. “Sounds great. Let me get some clothes and a towel.”
We went inside, I gathered my things and told Mom where I was going.
Nancy and I went out to her rusty station wagon and I got into the passenger seat. But some things never change. When Nancy turned the key, the engine didn’t want to turn over. I got out and lifted the hood, then wiggled the cables, and we were off and backfiring.
On our way out to the country, I asked, “Listen, these guys aren’t… This isn’t a double date, is it?”
Nancy laughed. “No, nothing like that,” she said. “Ron and Eddie are friends of Dorothy.”
“Who’s Dorothy?”
“Haven’t you heard people say that?” said Nancy. “It means like us. People who don’t get married. It’s like the friends in the Wizard of Oz. Ron and Eddie are in love with each other.”
Relieved, I said “oh,” and relaxed.
“What do you think about It?” Nancy asked, without looking at me. “I mean, about what we–“
“I don’t know,” I said. “I keep thinking that I ought to feel strange or something. But I don’t. It seems normal to me, somehow. Except that sometimes I worry about Mom and Dad finding out. They’d kill me.”
“There’s no reason for them to find out if you’re discreet,” said Nancy. “You don’t talk in your sleep, do you?”
“Nope,” I said. “I don’t know why it’s supposed to be so awful, though. We’re not hurting anybody.”
“They’re just scared of things they don’t understand,” said Nancy. “It’s worse in a Midwestern city like Indianapolis. Once you go away to school, it’ll be easier. There are more of us in a college town. And even here in Indy, downtown, there are special clubs you can go to.”
“How did you find out all this stuff?” I said.
“From Marilyn, my old roommate,” said Nancy. “She was from New York, and grew up around all kinds of people, some of them gay.”
“Gay?” I said. “Is that another word for it? And is Marilyn the one who moved out last spring?”
“Yeah,” said Nancy. She decided to live a safer life. She’s getting married next month.”
“That was quick,” I said.
“Well, I don’t think she cared who she married,” said Nancy. “Anybody who could give her what she wanted–a house, security.”
“So she doesn’t love him?” I asked.
“No,” said Nancy firmly. “She loved me.”
I was feeling a little Jealous so I changed the subject. “Have you ever been to one of those places — those special clubs?”
“A few times,” said Nancy. “My friends Pat and Ruby and I go every once in a while. It’s kind of fun. You can dance together. In fact, we’re thinking of going downtown Friday night. Do you want to come and see for yourself?”
“They won’t let me In, will they?” I said. “I’m only seventeen.”
“If you want to go, I can arrange something,” answered Nancy. “I can probably borrow some ID’s from somebody.”
“Okay, let’s go, then,” I said. “I’ll have to think of something to tell Mom and Dad.”
We were driving on a country road now, way out in the sticks now, and the houses were far apart. Nancy slowed as we approached a white mailbox with a megaphone-shaped newspaper holder, labeled “Indianapolis Star-News,” mounted next to It. Nancy put on the blinker for a left-hand turn. “This is it,” she said, turning into a winding driveway.
We crunched up the gravel, and a small house surrounded by evergreen bushes came Into view. The house, covered with white aluminum siding, looked tidy and well cared for. Nancy pulled up behind the two cars already in the driveway-~a sedan and a little foreign model—and set the emergency brake. As we got out and shut the doors, a young man emerged from the house.
“Well, I see you made it,” he said, smiling.
“Hi, Ron,” said Nancy. “Ron, this is Regina.”
“Hello, Regina,” said Ron. “You’re Just in time for lunch. Eddie Just started the grill. We thought we’d eat out on the patio. It stays pretty cool out there.”
Whatever I had been expecting, Ron wasn’t It, He looked Just like a regular Indianapolis resident. His brown hair was cut very short, with whitewalls over the ears. He seemed to be about thirty, and looked like he worked construction. He was stocky, with big square hands, and his white tee shirt contrasted sharply with his deeply-tanned face, neck and arms. He looked both intelligent and friendly, and I relaxed a little. As Ron led us up to the house, I noted that he was wearing loafers Instead of work shoes.
When we got to the house, Ron held the screen door open for us, and Nancy and I stepped inside the living room. I was struck by Its neatness, and the tasteful decor. There was a hi-fi under the front window, and out of it came Johnny Mathis singing “It’s Not for Me to Say.”
“Eddie?” called Ron. “Nancy and her friend are here.”
Eddie emerged from the kitchen, saying “Well, good. You two ready to eat? I, for one, am starving.”
Eddie was tall, thin, and very pale. He had white-blond hair, combed back from his narrow face. His eyes were large, and his nose and chin were both very pointed, so that he looked like a fox.
But his face was as cheerful and open as Ron’s, and he took my hand and said to Nancy, “My god, she’s as tall as you are! Why are all your friends as tall?”
“It’s not that they’re so tall,” Nancy said, “it’s that most of the people you know are so short.”
“Hey, you got something against short people?” demanded Ron, laughing. He was a couple of inches shorter than Nancy.
“No,” said Eddie. “I Just have something against people who hold up lunch. Let’s get those burgers on before I perish.”
Eddie, Nancy, and I settled into patio chairs and talked as Ron hovered over the grill, flipping hamburger patties and squashing them down with a pancake turner.
Ron, it turned out, worked spreading asphalt on driveways and parking lots. Eddie told me he worked at a medical analysis lab. When I asked what he did, Eddie said “You’ll laugh.”
“No, I won’t,” I said.”Yes, you will,” Eddie maintained. “Everybody does. It’s a lab for veterinarians. They send in gallstones and kidney stones and what have you, and I look at them under a microscope.”
I laughed, then said, “Oops, sorry.”
“I told you,” said Eddie, sighing dramatically. “Everybody laughs.”
“I didn’t know dogs got kidney stones,” Nancy put In.
“Well, they do,” said Eddie. “Poodles mostly. I run tests on the stones, and their chemical makeup can help the vet figure out what’s wrong with the animal. Most of the time, with the poodles anyway, it’s too much rich food. The owners feed Fifi or Mittens whatever they eat, and the poor things can’t digest it.”
“The owners probably have gallstones, too,” I observed.
“Probably,” agreed Eddie, as Ron carried a plate loaded with hamburgers to the little round table next to us. “Soup’s on,” Ron announced. “Eddie, would you get the stuff from the refrigerator?” Then he turned to us, “Eddie made his famous potato salad.”
“If I’d known that, we would’ve hour earlier,” said Nancy. “Regina, he does the world’s best potato salad.”
“Wrong,” said Eddie, as he nudged the patio door shut with his elbow and carried an armload of bowls and jars to the table. “My mother makes the world’s best. Mine runs a poor second.”
Over lunch, we talked about a thousand things: Nancy’s car (which was harder to start
every day), the disastrous audition at Ranch House Records, Ron and Eddie’s house. They’d bought the house three years before, and they were now going through all kinds of trouble with the roof, which leaked.
“In fact,” said Eddie, forking up some potato salad, “Ron and I have to go over to the roofing place this afternoon and argue with the guy. We paid him almost four hundred bucks to fix the damn thing, and it still leaks.”
“You two go ahead and take a dip in the pond if you want to,” Ron offered. “We ought to be back pretty soon. You two don’t mind staying out here by yourselves, do you?”
“Oh, I think we’ll manage,” Nancy said, giving me a quick smile.
“Okay, then,” said Ron, as he and Eddie stood up. “We’ll be back after while.”
Nancy went out to move the station wagon so Ron and Eddie could get out of the driveway, and I went inside to change. I removed my clothes and started pulling on my swim suit, which was white knit, with a blue vertical stripe running across the front. (As soon as I’d bought it, I’d gotten scissors and removed the built-in bra, which was stiff and pointy. I didn’t fill it up, anyway.)
I stood shakily on my left foot and tried to maneuver my right leg through the suit’s leg hole. Nancy opened the bedroom door suddenly, and I nearly toppled over, regaining my balance Just in time.
“You don’t really need that, do you?” Nancy asked, tugging at one of my straps. “Nobody here but us chickens.”
“They’re coming back though, aren’t they?” I said nervously.
“Not for a while,” said Nancy. “We can take our suits with us, and put them on when we hear their car.”
“Well, okay,” I said reluctantly. I was not used to running around naked, but once I was in the water I’d probably relax.
Nancy stripped, and we carried our suits and towels down to the pond. “Last year Ron brought in four or five truckloads of sand,” said Nancy as we picked our way between bushes and big rocks, “so now the pond has this little beach along here.” We dumped our stuff on the ground near the pond, and I started down to the water.
Nancy followed me and took my arm. “Just a minute, hotshot,” she said playfully. “We better sit down on the shore and wait a little. You’re supposed to wait an hour after you eat, and it’s only been about thirty minutes since we had all that potato salad. If we get the bends, or whatever it is you get, there’s nobody to save us.”
“Little Miss Water Safety,” I said, but I obediently laid out my towel and flopped down onto the miniature beach. “Oh, well, I can work on my suntan — no suit lines.” I laid back and shut my eyes.
“Well, you could work on your suntan,” said Nancy. “Except that I think there’s something between you and the sun.”
“What?” I asked, adjusting the towel under me.
“Me,” she said, and I opened my eyes Just in time to see her swoop down on me.
We finally made it into the water, but by that time, the sun was going down and the water was cold. We stayed in just long enough to rinse the sand off, then raced shivering into the house.
“I’m starving again,” I said, tying the lace on my blue plaid Ked sneaker.
“Me too,” Nancy said. “Let’s see… we’re almost in Gosport. Should we try and eat there? Do they even have a restaurant?”
“Actually, they’ve got several,” I said. Do you want to go to The Villa? It’s pretty good—Mexican food—and my friend Ernestine’s working there this summer. You know Ernestine?”
“I think so,” said Nancy. “She came to Connie’s party, didn’t she? Kind of chubby, reddish-blond hair, freckles?”
“That’s her,” I said. “She’s my best friend.”
I stood up. “Where’s the telephone? I need to call and tell my mom that I’m going to be home late.”
I felt strange, standing in Ron and Eddie’s front hallway, talking to Mom, after swimming naked and loving Nancy on the beach.
“We’ll save you some meatloaf,” said Mom so sweetly that I felt awful about hiding so much from her. I tried not to think about it.
“Okay, I won’t be too late,” I said. “Bye-bye.” I hung up.
Nancy and I looked for something to write on, and finally took a sheet of from the pad of typing paper next to the Olivetti in the spare bedroom. We worked together to compose a note thanking Ron and Eddie for their hospitality. Then we locked the front door behind us and headed for the car.
Out in the driveway, we threw our still-dry suits and damp towels into the back seat and got Nancy’s car started after only two tries.
The ride to Gosport was a short one, and soon we saw The Villa’s sign, which depicted a man in sombrero and sandals sitting against an adobe wall, taking a snooze in the mid-day sun.
Nancy pulled into the lot, parked, and looked at the little white building with the ridged black roof with the blocky overhanging ells. In front of the building, four wooden picnic tables sat on the smooth black asphalt of the parking lot. Through the front window, we could see yellow ceiling lights reflecting off red-and-black decor. People at two-person tables were talking and eating.
Nancy examined the architecture. “Was this a filling station at one time? Maybe a Sunoco?”
“Close,” I said. “Sinclair. The gas pumps used to be where the picnic tables are. Wait’ll you see the people who work here. The owner thinks costumes draw business, so he wears a sombrero and serape. He makes everyone dress that way too–even the waitresses. Poor Ernestine.”
We went Into the small white building and found seats. I sat facing a huge, gaudy painting of a bullfighter whisking his cape past a badly rendered black bull.
Over by the cash register, a square-shouldered man with black hair showing under a large straw hat was saying something to Ernestine. They were both dressed in Mexican peasant costumes, complete with floppy sombreros, and it was hard to tell who looked sillier.
Ernestine ended her discussion with her boss and made her way to our table, adjusting her sombrero. It was too large for her head, and threatened to tip over her eyes with every step.
“It could be worse,” Ernestine said before Nancy or I could comment. “He wanted to dress everybody as gauchos, even though I kept telling him that gauchos live in South America. He’s a little weak in the geography department. It’s only for the summer, I keep telling myself. A person can’t go completely nuts in three months. I hope.”
“It’ll be something to tell the grandchildren about,” I said comfortingly. “Listen, no child would believe this–a child is too logical. Only an adult could believe in such a thing.”
Nancy looked over the menu, which had a large cartoon of a saguero cactus on the front.. “Well, what do you recommend, senorita?”
“To tell you the truth, it;’s all basically the same stuff,” said Ernestine. “Beans, beef, tortillas, hot sauce. Those four things, mixed together in different proportions, and called different things. I’d go for the Mexicali Special. It’s cheap and there’s a lot of it.”
“What more could one ask?” said Nancy. “The Special for me.”
I decided on the same, and Ernestine split for the kitchen, steadying her headgear with one hand.
Dinner was good, Nancy’s company excellent, and by the time she pulled up in the driveway of my house, I was tired but filled with a happy glow, but I was also kind of sad because I was dreading the separation from Nancy. I loved being with her so much.
Magically, right when I needed it, “You Send Me” was on the radio again. It was a comfort, knowing that when I was home with the family, I could hear Sam Cooke sing and know that Nancy might be listening at the same time. It would my secret way to feel connected.
“If you still want to go to that special spot where the girls all go, I’ll scare you up some identification,” Nancy said, shifting into neutral.
“Yeah, I’d like to,” I said. “What do I wear?”
“Oh, anything,” said Nancy. “Slacks or blue jeans. Nobody dresses up. Okay, then, we’ll stop and get you about five on Friday. It’s a long drive.”
“See you then,” I said, squeezing her hand. I slid out of the car, and grabbed my swimming things from the back seat. I slammed the door of the rusty station wagon, and waved.
Nancy waved back, and backed the wagon out. I watched the red tail lights disappear down Montgomery Avenue.
*****
Mom and Dad were watching television when I came in. “There you are,” Mom said. “We were starting to worry.”
“We stopped for dinner on the way back,” I said.
“Well, hang your bathing suit up over the tub before you go to bed,” said Mom.
“It’s dry,” I said without thinking. “Urn, after we swam I laid it out in the sun. “
“You better get on up to bed, then,” said Dad. “It’s getting late.”
“Ten-four, Dad,” I said. “On my way.”
When I got upstairs, Ramona was lying on her bed, chatting on the telephone our parents had installed in our room for Christmas. “It’s partly a gift, and partly self-defense,” Dad had said. “This way your mother and I might get to use our phone occasionally.”
“Hi,” Ramona said to me, looking up. Then into the phone, “Just my sister.”
“What do you mean, Just?” I said, but Ramona ignored me and continued telling somebody, probably Connie, about a cute boy she’d met at Skate-a-Rama.
I put on my nightgown, got into bed, and was asleep in thirty seconds.
Chapter Twelve
I sat on the porch, ready for my first visit to a gay club. My parents were under the impression that Nancy and I were going bowling, then over to a friend’s for a while. I pushed myself back and forth in the porch swing with one foot, and watched three little girls play a game which involved a lot of chasing and yelling.
Mom had made me promise to call her as soon as we got to our friend’s house. When I went away to college, I’d probably have to call her every two hours. When I was sixty I’d probably have to call her every two hours. There I’d be, a famous scientist, helping to send a rocket to the moon. I’d be in the control room counting down. “Ten, nine, eight–just a sec, I’ve got to go call my mother.”
But she trusted Nancy not to lead me astray. Little did she know.
Right at seven-thirty, a snappy red sedan pulled up, with Nancy at the wheel and two women in the back seat. Nancy had borrowed her friend Laura’s car, not trusting her own to start so we could leave a dark bar in downtown Indy in the middle of the night.
Mom walked me to the screen door and said, “Now, be careful. Call me.”
“Have no fear, mother dear,” I said. “The worst that could happen is that I could drop a bowling ball on my foot.”
For once, I was the driver as Nancy and I went out. She suggested I take a turn, and I said I would as long as she would take over the wheel when we got to the very heart of downtown as I was confused about which streets were one way near Monument Circle.
It took less time to drive to the special women’s bar than I’d thought, even with two stops: one for food, one for a visit to the scuzzy bathroom of a late night diner. If it was possible to catch a social disease from a public restroom, that would have been the one.
I dried my wet hands on my slacks, unwilling to touch the roller towel, and then used the mirror on the towel box to give my hair a quick touch-up with a pocket comb. I didn’t want to go to this new place looking anything but my best. I didn’t know what a whole roomful of gay girls would be like. Were they nice? I hoped so. Well, Nancy and her friends would watch out for me.
The women in the back seat of the borrowed red sedan turned out to be Pat and Ruby, and they seemed to be a couple. They worked in the same factory, and each teased the other about how little work she did.
I turned around and said, “What do you do there?”and they said in unison, “As little as possible.” After a minute, Pat said, “No, we’re funnin’ ya. Ruby’s pulls parts for Pre-Assembly, and I’m an assembler on the refrigerators and deep freezer line.” I smiled as though I understood what that meant, and then turned around to face front again.
In the front seat, Nancy told me about college life, and warned me that while college was an improvement over high school, the people were basically the same.
“There’s a girl who sat behind me in European History all semester griping that having an eleven-thirty class was fouling up her suntan schedule,” said Nancy, checking the mirror before changing lanes. “I missed one of the lectures, and I asked to borrow her notes. She’d written down all the trivial stuff and left out all the important stuff–like names, or dates. Plus, she had this kind of big fat curly handwriting.”
“Little circles over the i’s?” I said.
“How’d you guess?” said Nancy.
“Ramona writes that way,” I said.
“So does Connie. Maybe they’ll grow out of it.”
We pulled over to change places, and Nancy drove us the rest of the way downtown.
The bar, called Jay’s Place, was so well-hidden that we drove past it twice before Ruby said, “There, on the left! Next to the pawn shop.”
At the front door, a woman with the shortest hair I’d ever seen on a female looked over our Identification with a flashlight. She started to quiz me, after shining the light in my face, but Pat said, “I know her, Fran. It’s okay.”
“All right, klddo,” Fran said, handing me back Dorothy Swenson’s driver’s license. “We Just don’t want the cops back in here. They were in here once this month already.”
We passed a bar with one old man sitting at it, and two more old men were playing pool nearby.
“I thought this was a women’s bar,” I whispered to Nancy.
“It is,” Nancy hissed back. “There are a few weird old guys who spend time in the front. The women are in the back.”
We went down a short hallway past a set of bathrooms. Someone had used a lipstick to alter the sign on the men’s room, so now the restrooms were marked “Ladies” and “Other.”
The back room was larger than the front one, and much more crowded. There were fifteen or twenty tables, and several women sat around each one. I didn’t see a party of less than four. There was a jukebox along one wall, and next to it a small dance floor covered with red tile.
A small length of black formica counter ran in an L-shape around the dance floor. The only empty seats in the room were the ones along this counter, so Pat, Ruby, Nancy and I filed in and took four of the stools.
A waiter in a snappy gray suit came, and waited for us to order. We all asked for Budweisers, which came in bottles (no glasses provided) and cost the outrageous sum of one dollar apiece.
That waiter was kind of surly,” I commented. “He must not like waiting on all these women.”
My companions laughed. “Waitress,” Nancy corrected me gently. “I guess she’s doing a show tonight.”
She?” I said. “That was a she? What kind of show?”
“She’s a male impersonator,” Pat explained. But Kay-Kay always wears drag when she works—every time Ruby and I have been here, anyway.”
Ruby turned back to the three of us she’d been talking to a woman sitting behind us. “I heard my name. You all telling big lies about me again?”
“Don’t have to,” Pat replied. “The truth’s scandalous enough. But seriously, folks — we were talking about Kay-Kay.”
“Did she fool Regina?” said Ruby.
“Yep,” Nancy said. “Bet she’d be thrilled to know that.”
I was tentatively sipping my first real beer (not counting sips of Dad’s when I was a kid) and looking over the other patrons. Most of them looked fairly regular, but at some of the tables sat women with DA’s who wore men’s clothing. Nancy had explained to me about butches and femmes, so I wasn’t surprised to see that most of the butches were accompanied by women in dresses and make-up.
An ordinary-looking woman went to the Jukebox and fed it some coins. Out came Bobby Darin’s “Splish Splash,” and several women got up to dance. I had never seen women dance together before, and the wonder of it washed over me. Here, we could dance together if we wanted to, and nobody would say a thing about it.
“Could This Be Magic” began, and the women moved into each others’ arms.
“Could this be magic, my dear?
My heart’s all aglow…”
What once had struck me as an extremely sappy song now seemed lovely. I was amazed to see that one of the swaying couples was made up of two gray-haired women who looked like they were somebody’s grandmothers. The grandchildren probably thought they were out playing pinochle at a nelghbor’s.
I swallowed the last of my beer, and set the bottle down on the counter. I was already feeling the effects; I hadn’t eaten much since breakfast.
The Five Satins started shoo-be-dooing. Nancy stood up and extended her hand. I stood, took her hand, and we moved onto the dance floor. I looked at her wonderful face. “We’re the same height. I suppose this means we take turns leading,” I said. “Shall I start?”
Nancy smiled and we began to move together with the music.
In the still of the night
I held you, held you tight…
Until this moment, I had always believed that I hated to dance. Now i realized that what I’d always hated was being crushed in the embrace of, and being dragged around by, someone twice my size. Especially if my face was smashed into the lapel of a rented dinner Jacket. Twirling around and around with someone you loved was something else entirely.
Love? Had the word “love” Just drifted through the mind of Regina Hammersmith? The word “love” used in connection with another person? My brain was getting all snarled up. The Five Satins faded out, and were replaced by the raucous Jerry Lee Lewis. A whole lotta shaltin’ was goin’ on, most of it in my knees.
I sat back down on the stool at the counter, and Nancy went off to the bathroom. I signaled the waitress, who brought me another beer, and I turned so Pat and Ruby to see how they were doing. They were necking, so they seemed to be doing fine. I returned my gaze to the dance floor, where an odd couple had made their appearance.
These two were mirror images of each other–each had extremely short black hair and wore black-framed glasses. They wore matching men’s sport shirts and matching white trousers, and both were plump, so that together they resembled Tweedledee and Tweedledum. Two butches? I thought. I couldn’t understand it. Two femmes almost made sense, kind of like dateless girls dancing together at a sock hop. But two butches?
Speaking of butch, a heavy hand landed on my shoulder. “Name’s Skip,” slurred the owner of the hand. “Wanna dance?”
Skip was a sight to behold. Her blond hair was slicked back into an impressive pompadour, ending in a ducktall. She wore a leather jacket, heavy workman’s jeans held up by a studded belt, and motorcycle boots. She would have stricken my heart with fear, except that she was five-foot- one at the most .
Still, she was forbidding — if short — and I dared not refuse directly. “Uh, let’s wait for a fast one,” I suggested.
“Okay,” agreed Skip, patting my shoulder. “I’ll be back.”
Nancy returned, and asked me to dance. I feared to, in case Skip was watching, so Nancy and Ruby went out on the floor. I finished my beer, and considered what to do if and when Skip returned as she had promised. The slow song ended, and the jukebox started pounding out “Blue Suede Shoes.”
Skip appeared at my elbow. “Ready now?”
“Why don’t we wait for a slow one?” I suggested cheerily. Skip was pretty drunk, or at least drunk enough to accept this. Saved — for at least three minutes. Or longer, if my luck held out.
It didn’t. Somebody’d selected “In the Still of the Night” again, and Skip’s voice rasped into my ear. “Ready now?” Trapped-trapped like a rat in a trap. I looked desperately for Nancy, but she was already on the floor, with Pat this time.
“Love to,” I told Skip, gritting my teeth. Helplessly I followed her onto the red tile, and she held out her arms. The fact that I was nearly a foot taller than Skip was not going to dissuade her from leading. She got me in a clinch. I was not so much leaning against her as draped over her.
Not only that, but she took such tiny little baby steps with her tiny little feet that I kept stepping on my own. We maneuvered in tight little circles and Skip began crooning in my ear, “Re-lax, reee-lax.” With every revolution, a brief blurry view of Ruby, laughing heartlessly at my fate, whipped past my eyes.As I concentrated on keeping my foot out from under one another, I reflected on my life to date.
In the past seventeen years, there were lengthy periods in which I’d been more wretched than I was now, but never before had so much wretchedness been compacted into so short a time. Just minutes before, “In the Still of the Nlght” had been a lovely refrain; now I knew I would never hear it again without wincing inwardly.
Wincing outwardly, I pulled my foot out from under a small but heavy motorcycle boot. The music faded away, and I extracted myself from Skip’s arms.
“Well, thanks for the dance, doll,” said Skip.
“Anytime,” I moaned, and limped to my seat.
“Have fun?” asked Nancy with a straight face.
“A thrill,” I said. I looked around for the second beer I’d ordered, and saw that Nancy had pushed it back away from me toward the back of the counter. In front of each of our seats was a glass of bubbly stuff that I guessed might be Canada Dry ginger ale. Nancy gave me a brief look, and I left the second Budweiser there, even though it had cost three times the price any place else on Earth.
Kay-Kay the waitress went to the Jukebox and flipped a switch. The lighted face of the machine went dark. Was the place shutting down already? I looked at my watch. Eleven o’clock.
“Showtime,” said Nancy. “Kay-Kay’s getting ready to do her bit. I don’t know if anybody else is performing. Do you, Pat?”
“Maybe Evelyn,” said Pat. “I heard she was about to leave town, but then she’s always about to leave town.”
“Eleven o’clock?” I said. “Shit! Is there a phone here? I better call the parental unit.”
“Parental unit, eh?” said Nancy. “Bet you don’t call her that at home. I think I saw a phone in the front room. Ask at the bar. “
There was indeed a phone near the pool table. I edged past a jutting cue stick and dialed home. Ramona answered.
“Hey Ramona, put Mom on, wouldja?”
“Sure,” said Ramona. “Where are you?”
“Bowling alley,” I said.
“I’ll bet.” Ramona wasn’t dumb.
“C’mon, give me a break, Ramona,” I said. “I didn’t rat on you the time you and Eddie Mitchell went–“
“Okay, okay,” said my sister. “I’ll get Mom. Hang on.”
The receiver thudded down on the kitchen counter and I hear Ramona about, “Mom! For you! Regina!”
Mom picked up the phone. “Hi, honey.”
Her voice was so full of loving concern that guilt loomed up from my Innards. How could I tell lies to this trusting voice?
“Hi, Mom,” I said. “Thought I’d better check in. We’re about to leave for Pat’s house . “
“I’m glad you called,” said Mom. “Your mother worries about you. How’d you all do?”
It took me a second to understand what she meant. “Oh, not too bad. I bowled one-ten, and Nancy did a little better. She’s ready for another game, but I’m beat, so I guess we’re on our way to Pat’s for awhile.”
“You’ll be back late then?” said Mom.
“Yeah,” I said. “Don’t wait up. I’ve got my key. Love you. Bye.”
She wouldn’t sleep a wink if she knew where I was, I thought. At least when I’m out on my own I won’t have to tell so many lies.
When I got back to my seat, Kay-Kay was standing on the dance floor, which evidently also served as a stage. The lights went down, and a blue spotlight focused on Kay-Kay in her dapper tailored suit.
“Good evening, ladles and…ladies,” she said into a hand-held microphone. “Are we ready to have a gay old time?”
This broke up the audience. There was scattered applause, and from the crowd came hooting and a few shouted comments. Kay-Kay put her microphone into a stand, and crackling came from the speakers mounted high in each corner of the room. Then came a recording of Johnny Mathis singing “Wonderful, Wonderful,” and Kay-Kay began to sing along.
Or rather, she mouthed the words while making expressive gestures. In the suit, she looked very natty, and was almost believable as a male pop singer. I sipped at my ginger ale, which was growing warm. I bet if Kay-Kay went to audition at Ranch House Records, old Smiley wouldn’t give her a hard time.
I set my beer bottle down. I was getting what my Aunt Doris called an “Idear.” What if Ramona and I… Nah, dumb idea. We’d Just get in trouble. Another dumb idea fostered by staying up late at night.
Kay-Kay moved into a Bobby Darin hit. “Seen enough?” Nancy asked. “Pat and Ruby have to work tomorrow, and I’m getting tired.”
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s make like bees and buzz off.”
As we filed out the front door and crossed the street, we passed the bartender, who was trying to load the recalcitrant Skip into a taxicab.
“Leggo o’ me,” said Skip. “I’m all right. All right.”
“I know, I know,” said the exasperated bartender. “This nice man Is here to take you home. Get In there now.”
“I’m all right…all right…”
Nancy, who’d stuck with ginger ale most of the night, was in perfect shape to drive. On our way home, Ruby fall asleep on Pat’s shoulder. Pat and Nancy reminisced about the fun they’d had at last summer’s parties. I didn’t participate in the conversation, content to look out the passenger window at the night scenery. My mind was occupied with an idea.
Chapter Thirteen
“He’ll never fall for it,” said Ramona.
“Sure he will,” I insisted. “Besides, if we get caught, we can Just pass it off as a practical Joke. What could happen to us? “
We were sunning ourselves in the back yard. Ramona was stretched out on a beach towel spread on the grass; I was sprawled in a lounge chair, with a copy of Space Age Monthly folded open in my lap.
“Isn’t there a law against dressing up in men’s clothes?” asked the ever-practical Ramona. “If you’re not one, I mean.”
“Oh, probably,” I answered breezily, “but Smiley would have to press charges, which he won’t. Like I said, if he doesn’t go for it, we just laugh it off. This is the first time I ever knew you to worry about getting into trouble, Ramona.”
The sun was hitting me in the eyes. I lifted my rear off the seat of the lawn chair, picked the chair up by its aluminum arms and shifted it under me, taking little waddling steps in the process. I settled the chair, aimed, and sat.
“It’s a funny idea,” admitted Ramona, “I’ll give you that, but what’s the point?” My sister sat up, searched for and found her suntan lotion.
I leaned forward in my chair, resting my elbows on my knees and knitting my fingers together. “The point is,” I said, “why did we have so much trouble getting anywhere with our music? Because we’re not any good?”
“No,” said Ramona.
“Because we’re girls, that’s why.” I counted off disasters on my fingers.
“First, we almost don’t get to play at the Follies because Mrs. What’s-her-name didn’t think rock-and-roll was suitable for girls. Second, Dad almost won’t let us go to the audition because he thinks show business in general isn’t suitable for girls. Third, Smiley tries to tell us what to sing, because making decisions isn’t suitable for girls. He was going to have someone else play our instruments. He wouldn’t have done that if we were men.”
“With you so far,” Ramona said, rubbing Tan Quick into her calves, “but–“
I broke in, pointing an index finger. “So we teach Smiley a lesson. We go for an audition, just like before. Only this time we go as men. Then, after he gives us the red carpet treatment, we tell him who we are. The worst that could happen is that he’ll get mad. But if he’s got a sense of humor, he might see our point. Maybe he’d even let us record the way we want to.”
Ramona remained unconvinced. “It won’t work.”
“Why not?” I said, leaning over the side of my lawn chair to pick up my glass of lemonade.
“Because he’ll know it’s us,” my sister explained, speaking slowly as though she was instructing a small child. “Even if we wore suits, we’d look like us.”
I laced my fingers behind my head and leaned back confidently, causing the lawn chair to tip dangerously. I hurriedly regained my balance.
“Not if we wear sunglasses and fake mustaches,” I said, flashing Ramona an assured smile, “and dye our hair red.”
“Red?” squeaked Ramona, squirting a blob of Coppertone into her navel. “Now look what you made me do. Dye our hair red? Mom will murderize us.”
“I realize that Mom will be a little upset,” I said.
“A little?” interrupted my sister.
“She’ll get over it,” I said. “Our hair will be short, so the red will grow out by the time school starts.”
“Smiley will know it’s us,” Ramona Insisted. “He’s not that dumb.”
“He’s not?” I asked. “He thinks wearing that enormous Stetson makes him look like a cowboy, doesn’t he? He thinks t-lie Sis-teens is an artistic name for a band, doesn’t he? He’s a pushover,”
“You got a point there,” Ramona admitted reluctantly. “But how, I repeat how, are we going to get an audition?”
“Easy,” I assured her. “We’ll get someone to call the studio and pretend to be our manager, telling Smiley that we’re a brother act from Alaska–“
“Alaska?”
“We have to get his attention, don’t we?” I said. “The story is that we’re shopping for a record label, and someone recommended Ranch House to us. Smiley’ll Jump at the chance to audition us. He’s desperate for a rock-and-roll act.”
Ramona rolled over on her stomach, resting her head on her folded arms. “I have to hand it to you, Brain. You’ve figured all the angles. Who can we get to be the manager, though?”
I stood up leisurely, knocking my magazine to the ground. Retrieving it, I said, “Got a hot prospect. Let me call.” Hurrying into the house, I let the kitchen door slam behind me.
“Don’t slam the door!” Mom yelled from the laundry room.
“Okay, okay!” I yelled back, taking the phone off the hook. I dialed a familiar number. “Hello, Ernestine?”
Chapter Fourteen
The little bell on the door of the A-1 Costume and Novelty Shoppe tinkled as Ramona and I entered. It took a minute for my eyes to adjust from the sunny outdoors to the darkness of the little shop, and at first I didn’t see Mrs. Schnabel.
“There she is, at the back,” Ramona said. Mrs. Schnabel was kneeling by a low shelf, straightening boxes and dusting.
We walked back to where the old woman was working. “Hey, Mrs. Schnabel,” I said.
“Hello, girls,” Mrs. Scnnabel said, slowly standing up and brushing the dust off her dress front. Obviously, she didn’t recognize us.
“It’s Regina and Ramona,” said Ramona. “Remember us? We used to come In here all the time, and–“
“Regina! Ramona! Why, I don’t believe It!” the old woman said, reaching out to squeeze our hands. “You girls have got so big! All grown up, what do you know. In high school now, I’ll bet.”
“Yes,” I answered. “Well, I just graduated. Ramona will be a senior in the fall.”
“I remember when you was Just little things, in here for Halloween costumes and I don’t know what all. Chemistry sets for you, Regina, weren’t you the one always wanting science things?”
I nodded.
“You were the only girl ever come In here wanting a chemistry set, that I recall, anyway,” the shop owner said. “What can I do for you girls today?”
“We want to buy mustaches,” said Ramona.
“We’re, uh, going to be in a school play,” I added quickly.
Mrs. Schnabel was puzzled. “They give school plays in the summer?”
Ramona turned to me. “A play? Regina, you silly thing. A party, she means, Mrs. Schnabel. We’re going to a costume party. Regina was In a school play a few months ago, so I guess she’s got acting on the brain. Anyway, for this costume party, we need false mustaches. We’re going as…ah . . . gypsies.”
“I can show you what we’ve got,” Mrs. Schnabel offered, slipping behind the counter. She took a cardboard box from the display area and put it up on the counter, then lifted off the lid, which was marked “Stage Hair, Beards, Goatees.” Mrs. Schnabel reached in her forefinger and moved the contents around. “Here are all kinds of beards and mustaches.”
I looked through the box, shifting the contents around with my hand. All the mustaches were big, bushy Groucho Marx ones, or else they were long, skinny, and cur led-up like Simon Legree’s. And most of them were jet black.
“Do you have any red ones?” I asked.
“Red?” said the old woman. “I thought you were going as gypsies.”
“Uh, yes, well, we’re going as red-haired gypsies,” I said. “From eastern Rumania. They have a lot of red-haired gypsies around there.”
“Whatever you say, honey,” Mrs. Schnabel answered. She pawed through the box and extracted a red one I hadn’t seen.
I don’t know how I could have missed it. It was large and fuzzy and looked like some type of South American caterpillar from the pages of National Geographic.
“We could trim it down, I guess,” Ramona suggested.
“I guess,” I said dubiously. “We’ll take three of them, please.”
“Three?” asked my sister and Mrs. Schnabel at the same time.
“Ernestine will have to come with us,” I told Ramona.
“She know that yet?” said Ramona.
“Well, no,” I admitted. “I didn’t get a chance to mention it on the phone.”
“Oh, boy,” Ramona hooted. “I want to be there when you tell her.” She studied the mustaches. “And her hair’s red, but it isn’t this color.”
“You’re right,” I said. “But black wouldn’t work. Maybe we better bring her a red one, and — wait, I think I saw a blond one in there, trimmed real short?” I dug around. “Here it is.”
Mrs. Schnabel gave us a searching look, frowning a little. “Ernestine isn’t much on costume parties,” I explained lamely. “Okay, then, we need something to stick the mustaches on with.”
Mrs. Schnabel reached under the counter and came up with what looked like a bottle of clear nail polish. “Spirit gum,” she explained. “You have to use rubbing alcohol to get it off again, but the mustaches will stay on.”
“That’s what we want,” Ramona said.
“We definitely want them to stay on.”
Mrs. Schnabel put the mustaches and spirit gum in a paper sack for us. “That’ll be three twenty-one with tax, girls.”
I opened my billfold and looked at Ramona, who was not making a move. Her look said “your idea.” I paid the bill.
We stopped next door at Hook’s Drugs and bought three pairs of men’s tortoiseshell sunglasses, like I’d recently seen Cary Grant in “North By Northwest” at the Westlake Drive-In. Men’s sunglasses were pricey. This little joke was eating a big hole in our savings, but I told myself it would be worth it.
We took the supplies to the corner, and waited a few minutes for the bus, which came at the usual time, six minutes late.
We got off the bus at Oakdale Drive, and walked to Ernestine’s house. You couldn’t miss it, although there were several tan brick ranch houses just like it on Oakdale.
Mr. Neuenschwander owned his business and drove the company vehicle home, so frequently there was a giant tank truck in the driveway, marked “Neuenschwander Septic Service.”
In contrast to this, the interior of the house resembled an aviary. Ernestine’s mom collected robins — not live ones, of course, but anything made in the shape of a robin or having one or more robins on it.
There were little ceramic robins hung on the wall; there were robin potholders and salt shakers and place mats. Even the light switches were surrounded by plastic robin-shaped switch plates.
“Well, she’s got to do something, I guess,” Ernestine said of her mother.
Now, Ramona stood behind me on the porch as I knocked on the screen door, then opened it. “Hi, Mrs. Neuenschwander,” we chorused as we entered the house.
Mrs. N. looked up from the kitchen table, where she was making out her grocery list on a notepad decorated with robins. “Hello, girls. Ernestine’s in the front room with her brother, I think. Do you want some lemonade? There’s some in the fridge. “
I glanced at the refrigerator, which of course had little magnetized robins stuck to the door. “No, thanks. We just had Cokes in town.”
When Ramona and I came into the front room, Ernestine’s brother Tom, age six, sat at a card table on which a Parcheesl board had been set up. He wore a Superman Jersey with what looked like chocolate pudding dribbled down the front. Both of his sneakers were untied and the laces hung down, not quite touching the floor.
“Hiya Tomcat,” I said. “Where’s your sis?”
“Under the couch.”
I looked down, and sure enough, a pink plump leg with Italian sandal attached protruded from under the sofa. Ernestine emerged with dust bunnies in her hair and a small cube clutched in her hand.
“One of the dice rolled under the couch,” Ernestine explained. “Tommy can really shake them bones.”
“Watch!” said Tom, jumping off his chair. “Here I am, shaking my bones!” He began doing a frantic hula-girl shimmy.
“The kid’s a natural,” said Ramona, laughing. “You oughta bring him to next year’s Vaudeville audition, Ern. Oh, wait, no! You graduated!”
“Everybody in this family’s nuts,” Ernestine said. “Screwy heredity. Tom, we’re going to go to my room for a while. Leave the Parcheesi board out if you want, and we’ll finish the game later.”
“Nah,” said Tom, folding up the board and putting the pieces back into the box. “I have to get ready for Cub Scouts pretty soon.”
“Tom!” Mrs. Neuenchwander called from the kitchen. “It’s five-thirty! Better get dressed! You know Mr. Jackson doesn’t like to wait!”
“I am!” yelled Tom.
“Let’s go to my room,” Ernestine suggested. “it’s quieter in there.”
The three of us went down the hall and into Ernestine’s bedroom, which turned out to have a rather startling jungle-safari theme. The curtains were leopard-print, the wallpaper had tropical trees all over it, the pillows were covered in zebra-stripe cases, and the bed was full of toy elephants, toucans, and crocodiles. I shut the door behind us, and jumped when a chain of stuffed-animal monkeys, each holding the next by the tail, brushed against my back.
Ernestine removed several armloads of stuffed animals from the bed so Ramona and I could sit down.
“Okay,” she said eagerly, pulling out a desk chair for herself. “Now what am I supposed to say to this guy?”
“We’ll get to that in a sec,” I said. “Listen, Ernestine, there’s one thing I thought of since I talked to you on the phone. I hate to say this, but…I think you need to come with us to the audition–“
“Good! I want to see it.”
‘–dressed as a man.”
“On second thought,” said Ernestine, “maybe it would be better if I stayed home and–“
“It might not work, otherwise,” I pleaded. “We have to make Smiley think we’re professionals. You know, so he’d be a fool not to audition us. So the phone’s not enough. Big shots always travel with their managers.”
“But I don’t look like a man,” Ernestine protested. “At least I hope not.”
“You would if you were wearing a suit and this.” I fished around in the sack we’d brought and pulled out a red, fuzzy mustache.
“Ick,” said Ernestine. “Whatever that is, I don’t think I want it on my body. Or near my body.”
“It’s a mustache,” I said. “A little bushy, maybe, but we can trim it down. Hey, it matches your hair –“
“It most certainly does not,” said Ernestine.
“Well, it’s close, anyway,” I said quickly. “Your hair is much prettier. And we got some nifty sunglasses, too. Everything we need to transform you Into Ernie Neuenschwander.”
“What if somebody sees me?” my friend said. “This kind of thing could put quite a dent in my social life, which is not all t hat hot, anyway.”
“Nobody will know it’s you,” I assured her. “We can get dressed somewhere private, go right over there. We do the audition, then split. Quick clothes change, whip off the mustache, and bing! you’re you agalh. Piece of cake.”
“If nothing goes wrong,” added Ramona helpfully.
“Don’t listen to her, Ernestine,” I said. “It’ll go like clockwork. Just this one time. I swear I’ll never ask you for another thing as long as I live. Virginia Woolf did it.”
“Who’s Virginia Woolf?” said Ernestine. “Was she in the sophomore class?”
“A famous writer,” I said. “She went onto a British navy ship dressed as an Abyssinian prince. Abyssinia’s what they used to call Ethiopia. Anyway, she and a bunch of her friends dressed up as foreign princes and talked Her Majesty’s navy into giving them a tour. If Virginia Woolf could fool the British navy, surely we can fool Smiley Westbrook. Come on, Ernestine, be a pal.”
“All right,” said Ernestine. “If we get in trouble, though–“
“We won’t,” I assured her. “Ready to make the call?”
“Yeah,” she said. “I hope i can make my voice deep enough.”
“Sure you can,” I said encouragingly. “Take a deep breath, and speak from your diaphragm. Not growly, just as low as you comfortably can. “
“How’s this?” asked Ernestine in a fairly deep voice .
“That’s fine,” I answered. “Just sound businesslike. Hold the receiver away from you a little and it’ll sound like a bad connection. Give me a sheet of paper, and I’ll write out what to say.”
Ernestine handed me a sheet of letter paper decorated with robins.
“Present from your mom?” I said, and she shrugged. I noted that the type of robins on the notepaper wouldn’t be seen anywhere in our area. These were Erithacus rubecula, found in Europe and some parts of Siberia.
I ignored the puzzling robin illustrations and scrawled out Ernestine’s lines, then handed her the script. “Just say that. Sound like you mean business, and we’re set.”
The three of us trooped out into the hallway and checked to make sure Ernestine’s mother had left to take Tom to Cub Scouts. The coast was clear, so we gathered around the telephone table. Ramona, nervous, reached down to pick up the Yellow Pages from the shelf under the phone, then began leafing through its “K” listings.
Ernestine picked up the receiver and dialed the number as I gave it to her. I looked at Ramona, sitting on the bed with her back propped against the wall. “No giggling,” I warned. Ramona made a V for Victory.
“Good afternoon,” Ernestine said pleasantly into the phone. I gestured frantically and she brought her voice down a few notches. “May I speak with Mister Smiley Westbrook, please?” There was a brief pause, then presumably Smiley came on the line.
“Mr. Westbrook? This is Ernest Neuenschwander. I represent Neuenschwander Management, which is based in Anchorage, Alaska. Are you familiar with our firm? No? Well, no matter.”
I reached out and pulled the receiver away from Ernestine’s mouth, then pointed the tip of my thumb down and made a solemn face, to get her to slow down and speak in a deeper voice. Ernestine thought I was giving her performance a thumbs-down and she turned her back to me, holding the phone cord out of the way, before she continued. “Why I’m calling is that I have two clients, Ricky and Raymond Smith. They’re a singing duo very popular In our state. I’m searching for a record label suitable for an act of their… ah… magnitude. I’ve heard a lot of good things about Ranch House. You’ve worked with Tex Heywood and His Mountain Yodelers, haven’t you? I thought so. I’ve been favorably impressed with those records, Mr.
Westbrook, and I think you might have the technical proficiency and so on to handle an act with the potential of the Smith Brothers,” There was a pause.
“Yesslr, that’s the name. Like the cough drops, yes. My clients and I will be in your area next week to visit some friends and take care of some business. Perhaps we should make an appointment to have some lunch and talk over this matter. Yes, Tuesday would be fine…uh, perhaps we could pick another spot…I have an ulcer, and that spicy food…yes, fine, much better…at eleven, then? All right, we’ll see you then, Mr. Westbrook.” Ernestine hung up. “How did I sound?”
“Good,” I answered. “You convinced me. “
“You have an ulcer?” Ramona asked, concerned.
“No,” replied Ernestine. “But he wanted to meet where I work. I told him I couldn’t eat spicy food. I can’t face my boss in some weird get-up –“
“You mean not in some weird get-up?” I said. “Like a sombrero and a serape?”
“No matter what I had on, he might recognize me, even with a mustache glued to my lip.”
“Speaking of get-ups,” said Ramona, “where are we going to get the clothes for this caper?”
“One step ahead of you, sister dear,”
I said, tapping my temple. “Ernestine’s friend Marcia, the one that did the dance audition with her? “
“The one that cried when Ernestine fell down?” said Ramona.
“That’s her. Well, Marcia’s dad runs a dry-cleaning shop. She got us three suits. I guess they’ve got a lot of them in the back room. People drop off their stuff and forget it. Or they don’t have the money to pick it up.”
“Maybe they died,” worried Ernestine. “I don’t want to wear some dead guy’s suit. “
“For God’s sake, Ernestine,” I said. “They didn’t die. They Just dropped off their cleaning and forgot it.”
My detail-conscious sister wanted to know where we were going to change, and how we were going to get to our luncheon engagement with Smiley.
“We can change here,” Ernestine said. “My mom will be at work till three, and Tommy leaves for Boy Scout camp tomorrow. We can drive over in my dad’s–“
“No,” I said firmly. “We can’t show up in a septic service truck.”
“He’s got a Plymouth,” Ernestine rushed to explain. “He just takes the truck to work.”
Okay, then,” said Ramona. “I guess that’s it.”
“It’ll be a snap,” I said. “Don’t worry about a thing.”We all froze as we heard the sound of the Earl M. Neuenschwander Septic Service truck manuevering its way into the driveway. We hurried back into Ernestine’s bedroom to pose as normal teenagers until we could make our escape.
Chapter Fifteen
“How do I look?” Ramona asked, smoothing down her mustache.
I ran my eyes over her slowly, then grasped her shoulder and turned her around to get the rear view. “Pretty convincing. Let me fix your hair.” I took the open tube of Brylcreem from the dresser and added a little more goo to my sister’s hair. “Your hair’s too long in back,” I said. “Try to keep it tucked down the back of your collar.”
Ramona and I were readying ourselves in Ernestine’s bedroom. Miss Neuenschwander was attiring herself down the hall in her brother’s bedroom.
A full-length mirror was attached to the back of the bedroom door. I turned this way and that in front of it, admiring my reflection. I made a pretty handsome fellow, if I did think so mayself. I adjusted the knot in my necktie, then gave myself the once-over . The pants of my sit were a little baggy around the waist, but you couldn’t tell when my Jacket was buttoned.
The doorknob rattled, and I stepped back quickly.
“Ta-daaa!” yelled Ernestine as she flung open the door. “Well, what do you think?”
My best friend had done a pretty good Job of transforming herself into a rock- and-roll star’s manager, or rather an Indiana businessman’s idea of a rock star’s manager.
“God, you both look great!” exclaimed Ernestine. “You guys look just like–well, guys. What did you do to your hair to turn it red?”
“Henna,” I said. “it was a pain in the butt, let me tell you.”
“I’ll bet your mom had a fit,” said Ernestine.
“She did,” Ramona. “We told her all the girls were doing it. And she said —”
“Let me guess,” Ernestine said. “If all the girls Jumped off a cliff –“
“You got it.”
Ernestine turned around slowly for our benefit. “Well, tell me how good i look.”
“Looking real sharp there, Ernest,” I said. “But I’m afraid you’ll have to wear a hat or something during lunch. Your hair’s blonde with some strawberry highlights, but your mustache choices are Tab Hunter blond or the dark reddish auburn like we have.”
“A gentleman doesn’t wear his had at the table,” protested Ernestine. “Wait a minute. I just thought of something. Back in a sec.”
“Dammit,” I said to Ramona. “I should have realized that neither mustache would match.”
Ernestine reappeared. “Here’s some red shoe polish. Do you think it would wash out if I used it on my hair?”
“Who has red shoes?” asked Ramona.
“My mother,” said Ernestine. “Don’t make a big deal out of it, okay? She’s got a lot of red clothes and stuff. I guess she wants to match the robins. Anyway, do you think this would come out if I used it?”
I took the can and scanned the list of ingredients, which told me nothing. “I dunno, Ern. Let’s go in the bathroom and try a little on the back of your hair and see if it’ll shampoo out.”
I followed Ernestine down the hall to the bathroom. She took off her suit coat and draped it over the shower rod, then rolled up her sleeves. She sat on the toilet seat with her back to me, and I tucked a bath towel around her neck to protect her collar. After I popped off the can lid, I used the tip of my finger to dab shoe polish on the hair at Ernestine’s nape.
“There,” I said. “We’ll let it dry a little, then we can see if it’ll wash out.”
I waited a few moments, then wet a washcloth in the basin and poured a little shampoo on it. I rubbed at the ends of Ernestine’s hair. “Yeah,” I said, “it’s coming out. Do you want to try it?”
“Might as well,” my friend said. “If I’m going to lunch as a man, I might as well go as a handsome man.”
Ramona came and leaned in the bathroom doorway to watch Operation Shoe Polish. I started in the front at Ernestine’s hairline and rubbed polish along the hair shafts in vertical stripes.
Taking a comb from the back of the sink, I said, “Here, let me slick this back while it’s wet.”
“Much better,” said Ramona, surveying the results. “You look like what’s his name, Valentino. If he’d had red hair, I mean . “
“God, my hair is hard as a rock,” Ernestine said, running her palm over her head.
I touched her hair. The dry polish had stiffened each strand of hair, so that her head was covered with hard little ridges. “Yeah, it’s stiff all right,” I said, “but you can’t tell from looking at it,” and I don’t think Smiley will be running his fingers through your hair.”
“Is it a problem that my hair’s the same color as yours now?” said Ernestine. “Smiley will ask if we are a trio.”
“You can be our. . .” I thought. “Our cousin. We like to keep business in the family.”
“We’re running kind of behind on time,” Ramona/Raymond said, pulling up her Jacket sleeve to peer at her watch. “We don’t want to be late.”
“Then let’s make like a banana and split,” I said.
We pulled into the parking lot of Pauline’s Kountry Kitchen at quarter till eleven. I directed the parking.
“Ernestine, better take that one, next to that Buick. Back in, so the Indiana plates don’t show.”
“Move your big old red head, ‘glna, ” Ernestine said. “Or Ricky, or whoever you are. I can’t see the right-hand mirror.” I obliged, and Ernestine neatly backed her dad’s Plymouth into the space and turned off the ignition.
Ramona’s voice came tremulously from the back seat. “Urn, you guys, I don’t think I can do this. You two go in if you want.”
“No chickening out now, sister dear,”
I said. “Brother dear, I mean.”
“Ready, Reggie?” asked Ernestine.
“Not Reggie, Ernest–that’s Archie’s creepy friend. My name is Ricky, if you please.”
“Hey, I thought I was Ricky,” complained Ramona.
“You’re Raymond. Get it straight now,” I commanded. “Sunglasses on? Okay, troops, let’s make like the Air Force and jet.”
*****
Ernestine and I swaggered up to the glass dooor of the Kountry Kitchen, with Ramona trailing behind, and entered the restaurant. Truck drivers and salesmen looked up from their Swiss steaks. We smiled hiply at them, add bopped back to a comfy-looking booth.
The three of us slid along the semicircular leatherette couch till we sat three-in-a-row behind the table, facing out. Two empty chairs on the other side awaited Smiley and Cecil.
The waitress approached us gingerly, carrying an armful of water glasses and menus. As she distributed them, I said, “Like, thanks. We’re waiting for two other guys. We’ll order when they show, okay?”
“Okay,” said the waitress, and fled.
So far I’d managed to keep a straight face. It wasn’t too difficult since my hair was plastered down and my upper lip was immobile under the mustache. Fortunately, the restaurant was air- conditioned; I had worried that the heat might un-stick my facial hair.
Ramona looked toward the front door, and nudged me. I spotted Smiley and his loyal sidekick (wearing a green plaid shirt) as they walked past the cashier. I whispered to Ernestine, and by the time Smiley and Cecil reached our table, she was standing.
“Hello,” she said nervously. “You must be Mister Westbrook and his able assistant. I’m Ernest Neuenschwander.”
“Pleased to meet ya,” boomed Smiley as he extended a meaty hand for Ernestine to shake.
Ernestine gestured toward our side of the table. “These are my clients, the Smith Brothers. This is Ricky, and here’s Raymond.”
Ramona and I stood and shook hands first with Smiley, then with Cecil. This accomplished, we all sat down. The waitress approached with another load of menus and glasses, then pushed through the double swinging doors of the kitchen and disappeared.
“Well, well,” said Smiley, smiling. “How you gentlemen like this party of the country?”
“Very pretty,” volunteered Ramona. “Quite a change from the scenery at home.”
“I imagine,” said Smiley. “Not too many igloos around these parts.” He chortled at his own witticism, and I managed a weak laugh. Cecil smiled but said nothing. I noticed him glance at his oxfords a couple of times, and I realized that Cecil was picking up the odor of the shoe polish in Ernestine’s hardened, slicked-back hair.
Fortunately, Smiley lit a slim but smelly cigar. Ernestine coughed in her normal, high- pitched fashion. I shot her a warning look, and she brought her coughs down an octave.
Smiley removed the cigar from his mouth, and balanced it in the ashtray, where it sent a steady stream of smoke into my eyes. I scooted to the left a few inches, but the smoke followed me.
“This is a real pretty town,” I said, trying to get the conversation started again. “Reminds me of the town I grew up in. “
Ernestine let a partial laugh slip out, then got a grip on herself. So far, Smiley and Cecil seemed to be buying our act. If we could just get through this lunch without slipping up, we’d have it made in the shade. “What kind of material do the boys do, Mr. Neuenspender?”
“Neuenschwander,” said Ernestine/Ernest. “The Smith Brothers are definitely rockers, Mr. Westbrook. Some standard stuff, and some originals. Raymond writes a lot of material. He’s done one called ‘Olé, Baby’ that’s a killer. Very popular with the young ladies. “
Our food came, and was distributed deftly by the waitress. Smiley crumbled saltines over the surface of his soup.
“And you boys play as well as sing, Ricky?” asked Smiley.
I adjusted my shades and spoke out of the corner of my mouth. “That’s the story, man. Raymond’s on the Ivories and I’m the cat on the sax.”
“Well, ain’t that somethin’!” explained Smiley. “I had a couple little girls come see me a while back. Played the same two instruments.
I nearly choked on my cheeseburger. Was the jig up? No. Smiley seemed to be genuinely amazed by the coincidence. I glanced at Cecil. No reaction from him.
Ernestine/Ernest was on top of the situation. “What do you know about that?” she asked coolly. “This gig’s the coming thing. Lotta cats in the business say sax and keys are all you need.”
“At Ranch House, we try and keep up with the times,” Smiley said. “Sounds to me like you boys ought to come on out to the studio and give us a taste of what you do, so to speak. Think so, Cecil?”
“Sure,” said Cecil around a mouthful of buttered roll.
“How about Thursday, then?” Smiley suggested. “You still be in town then?”
“Cool,” I said. “We can make the gig.”
Smiley extracted a cowhide-bound appointment book from an Inside Jacket pocket, and flipped through it. “Ten o’clock? Not too early for you, is it?”
“No problem,” smiled Ernestine/Ernest, her mustache tinged with mustard. “We’ll make the scene.”
I stood. “Mr. Westbrook, it’s been real cool, but we gotta make like a tree and leaf. We’ll catch you on Thursday, then.”
Cecil spoke up, startling me. It was easy to forget that he was there. “You need directions to the studio?”
“We’ve been–” I said without thinking. “I mean, we cruised by there the other day, on our way to a party. I remember where it was.”
We bopped out, stopping at the cash register to settle up. We piled into the Plymouth, laughing.
“Ricky, you’re a real gone cat,” Ramona giggled. “Like, real gone.”
“Thanks, Raymond,” I said. “You were pretty gone yourself.”
“I can’t believe we actually got away with it,” my sister marveled. “Wait till we tell him.”
I stared at her. “Tell him?”
“I thought that was the plan, sister mine,” said Ramona/Raymond.
“Yeah,” said Ernestine. “me too.” She ran her hand over her hair, and then was startled by the polish-hardened texture.
“But I didn’t know it would go over so well!” I protested. “We’re on our way to a recording contract! Our big chance, and you want to blow it by telling him?”
“Little Miss Show Business,” said Ramona. “A couple of months ago, you didn’t want to sing with Connie and me if you had to tease your hair. And now listen to you. Regina, it’s been a laugh-and-a-half so far, but how long can we keep this up? Smiley’s dumb, I’ll grant you that, but he’ll catch an eventually.”
“Not necessarily,” I argued. “The hard part is over, Ramona. He’s already accepted us as men. Think about it. We can do ‘Olé, Baby’ and do It the way we want.”
“As long as we’re somebody else,” Ramona pointed out,
“We’ve tried doing it as us, and look how far. we got. Let’s keep the Smith Brothers going at least until we get your song recorded,” I urged. “Then we can spill the beans if you want.”
“I don’t need to come to this audition, do I?” asked Ernestine, as she turned into the driveway of her house. She eased the family Plymouth along the edge of the driveway, so far to the side I was confused. Then I realized she was making room for her father’s septic-service truck.
“This was fun and all,” Ernestine/Ernest continued as we got out of the car and sneaked toward the back door of the house, using the tool shed as a cover to keep the neighbors from seeing our costumes, “but my hair won’t take too many of these shoe polish treatments.”
“You’re off the hook,” I said. “We can wing it for a while, I guess. We might need you later, though.”
Ernestine and Ramona entered the house, but I lingered on the front porch. “Aren’t you going to take that get-up off?” asked Ramona.
“I’ll sneak into our house later and do it,” I said. “I want to give somebody a little surprise.”
“You be careful,” cautioned my sister. “If you get In trouble, it’s not going to be easy to explain that mustache.”
“No sweat, sis,” I said. “Careful’s my middle name.”
“Regina Careful Hammersmith,” Ernestine/Ernest said. “I like it. Sounds like a lady novelist.”
“See you cool cats later,” I said, ignoring her. “I’m gonna make like a banana, and split.”
I hurried off, taking a quick peek at my watch. It was after two, and I knew Nancy was already waiting for me downtown. The 34th Street bus roared past me and reached the stop before I did, but it stopped to let off an old woman with an armful of library books and I Just had time to Jump on before the driver stepped on the accelerator. I held a dime over the change slot, let it clink down into the fare box, and eased myself onto the long seat behind the driver.
Mrs. Cotner, a neighbor from down the street, took up the other half of the seat. Actually, she took up almost three-quarters of it, since the Cotners tended to run large. I turned and said, “Hey, Mrs. Cotner,” bvut she was already gathering her shopping bags to move back to a safer seat.
I was mystified and a little hurt by this until I looked down at my crossed-over leg and spotted my pants cuff and the side of my pointy-toed shoe. I had forgotten about being in my Ricky outfit.
A suit was definitely more comfortable than the traditional feminine get-up. Men didn’t get cut in half by the elastic waistband of a half-slip.
The dark glasses I wore obscured my vision, and the bus was two stops past my corner before I realized it. I reached up and pulled the dirty white bell cord, and grabbed the pole behind the driver as the bus abruptly stopped.
I waited as the doors accordioned back with a loud whoosh- slam, then hopped out and backtracked to Hook’s Drugs.
After fruitlessly pushing at a door clearly marked “Pull,” I got the door open and walked past displays of toothpaste and baby powder to the lunch counter at the back of the store. The clock over the coffeepot said 2:36, and I spotted Nancy on a stool near one end of the counter.
Sauntering over, I hitched one leg over the stool next to her and slid onto it. I flashed Nancy a brilliant smile, without removing my shades.
“Hel-lo, Miss Peabody,” I said in my deepest voice. I’d assumed that Nancy would recognize me instantly, but she didn’t look up from her newspaper. My beloved knew me not. I decided to carry the joke a little farther and tapped her shoulder. When she turned to look at me, I gave her a wordless stare.
My heart’s desire was annoyed. “Do I know you?” she asked in a tone which implied that she hoped she didn’t.
“Yep,” I said, smiling sweetly.
Nancy had had enough. She looked down the counter. “Maxine?” The waitress came, taking an order pad from her apron.
“Maxine, this guy is bugging me, ” Nancy complained. “Make him move to the other end or throw him out or something.”
I smiled at Maxine. She did not smile back. “Dig,” I told her. “Nancy doesn’t recognize me. Can I have your order pad, just for a second?”
“This?” Maxine held up her order pad. “Listen, Mister, I –“
“Just for a second,” I insisted. “Everything’s cool.”
Reluctantly she handed it over, and as an afterthought took the pencil from behind her ear and gave me that.
I scribbled a note across the pad, then held it in front of Nancy’s eyes. She read it, then looked me over carefully. I wiggled my eyebrows, and she said, “I suppose you think you’re pretty funny.”
“Yep. “
“It’s all right, Maxine,” Nancy told the confused waitress. “I know…him.”
I tore the scribbled-on page from Maxine’s pad, crumpled it, and stuffed it into my Jacket pocket, then handed Maxine back the pad. “Hey, I didn’t mean to cause you, like, problems. Could I have two scoops of butter pecan ice cream, please?” Maxine rolled her eyes, but she went to get the ice cream.
I enjoyed both scoops immensely, despite the murderous looks I was getting from the next stool. I had to hold the spoon a little lower down than normal, so that the straggling nylon fibers of my costume-shop mustache didn’t dip into my dessert.
I won Nancy over again by picking up her check. She took my arm and we strolled out, a very striking couple.
“Let me guess,” Nancy began before I could say a word. “You’re applying for Kay-Kay’s Job at that bar downtown. I’m not sure you’re graceful enough to wait tables.”
“You calling me clumsy?” I demanded as I nearly toppled over a fire hydrant, which hit me a knee level. I recovered my balance quickly, giving my hanged knees a quick brush. “I’m aiming higher than a barmaid’s job. Remember when Ramona and I went to audition at the record studio?”
I filled Nancy in on the events to date as we walked down 34th Street arm in arm. It was fun to walk and talk together, accepted by passersby as a couple.
“You realize, of course, that this may cause talk,” Joked Nancy.
“Your name may be slightly besmirched,” I agreed. “As the mystery man, I don’t have to worry about my reputation. If I wasn’t wearing this itchy mustache, though, my little lamb chop, we’d both be in trouble. My small cheese danish. My little cantaloupe. My own–“
“Knock it off, ‘glna,” Nancy said, laughing. “Seriously, though–sometimes I think about having to sneak around my whole life, and I wonder if it’s worth it.”
“Yes, it’s true,” I intoned, bringing my hand to my forehead dramatically. “They live in a twilight world! What dark passions, what burning desires drove them into the secret world of …forbidden love?” I burst into a tasteful rendition of Doris Day’s “Secret Love,” but Nancy shushed me.
“When do you audition?” she asked, removing her palm from my mouth so I could answer. We’d ventured into the playground of William E. Borah Elementary School, and we settled ourselves side by side into swings.
“Thursday morning at ten,” I answered, giving my swing a big push-off with my oversized Ricky oxfords.
“What’re you going to sing?” asked Nancy, as I swung past her.
Swooping back again, I said. “A song Ramona wrote. It’s called–“
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