Lawrence Block - Manhattan Noir

In the living room, Bogart and Audrey were sailing off to their Parisian honeymoon in black-and-white. Personally, I couldn’t see what she saw in him. I would have taken Holden any day, philanderer though he was. After all, there was no guarantee what Bogart would be like after Paris.

But kid, I’m getting too old for this.

What? You think Ron happened yesterday? Audrey Hepburn died, that’s what happened yesterday. Papers said cancer. Too bad Ron’s not here. We’d have honored her passing together.

So you want to hear the rest of this story or not?

On her way home from lunch with friends the next afternoon, my mother was killed by a hit-and-run driver.

“She was running across the street again,” my father shouted.

“Always running!”

He had seldom been as angry. A-Ba’s an ugly man who was once better looking. Smashed his face against a cracked toilet bowl when he was drunk one night, and emergency did a lousy job on his jowl. In his fury, his gnarled, contorted face resembled a lion’s head in the dance-a shiny red and gold mask with fierce eyes.

“It was an accident,” I said. “The police said so. Besides, the driver should have stopped.”

“Always running,” he muttered.

Can’t recall much about the funeral. My three brothers did the adult things and said very little to me. We were virtually strangers, since they were gone by the time I was born. I wanted to scream at everyone to shut up and stop crying. I didn’t cry. My thoughts zigzagged from the driver who left my mother on the road to die, to my father who never spent time with her, to Audrey, dancing in the moonlight in the arms of Bogart, the ugly industrialist, the man who would look after her for the rest of her life as Sabrina. Only in celluloid, not in Hong Kong.

Hey kid, I’m on. We do five shows Friday night. You’re going to wait? Suit yourself. Back in fifteen, max.

How did he get me started? Asked about the ring, that’s how. This one’s different. Got a little class. Been in a few times, always buys me a drink. Looks at me when he speaks. Most guys can’t. All they see is… well, you know.

Ron couldn’t even watch me dance, never mind this act. But if it weren’t for my little specialty, I couldn’t keep this job, not now. Occasionally, he’d wait outside, even in the snow, before things got bad. “Times Square’s no place for a girl after dark,” he’d say, whenever he walked me home. Afterwards, we’d watch movies together till sunrise.

I miss that.

Vegetables? Funny? I suppose they are. There was the cigar, until some joker lit it. Scorched thighs hurt. Like the boss says, every act needs to change. Cucumbers taste better anyway.

Oh, so now you want to know what happened next? You’re the funny one, kid.

Six months later, A-Ba sent me away to an all-girls boarding school in Connecticut.

“You’ve been begging to go to the States,” he said over my protests. “I’ve made all the arrangements. Besides, I can’t look after you.”

He hadn’t touched any of Mother’s stuff since the funeral.

I wanted to find a keepsake among her silks and jewelry, but didn’t dare without his permission. Being the only girl, it was my right to have the first go. Once I was gone, my sisters-in-law would ransack all her beautiful things and there’d be nothing left for me.

I sulked my way to Connecticut.

Didn’t like the school. We weren’t allowed late-night TV. Despite the rules, we sneaked out after dark to meet boys. My classmates were in competition to lose their virginity. I won on my sixteenth birthday, easy. You don’t have to be either graceful or beautiful in the backseat of a car. Being the only foreigner added to the freak factor. Anyway, it’s not like those boys would bring me home.

I wrote home, dutifully, once a month. My brothers I never heard from. A-Ba only wrote brief notes with money, once each semester.

Mother would have written me long, gossipy letters, full of movies and news of society friends. If she’d seen an Audrey, her words might have flown. Mother survived on sentiment. She used to say, “One day, I’m taking you to New York where we’ll do ‘breakfast’ at Tiffany’s. We’ll buy the diamonds for your wedding there.” When it all got too much, I’d shout, “Mother, don’t be silly! Who’d marry me ?” And she would hold me tight, tears rolling down her cheeks, promising, “Trust me, my darling, someone will. Someone will.”

I never wasted time crying.

Fantasy home. That’s what this club is. Guys come in for escape or relief because they can’t make it. A-Ba wasn’t like them. He had Mother because he was successful. Problem was, she needed someone classier. Wasn’t his fault. Other than his temper, he wasn’t all bad. It’s just that you can’t manufacture class the way you can soy sauce.

Maybe I came along too late and caught a dismal closing act. They must have had a better life once.

I didn’t talk about family to anyone.

Summer after graduation, I finally was allowed home. In Connecticut, it was possible not to think about her or her miserable life with A-Ba. But home, without Mother, was worse than being kept away at school.

In late August, Wait Until Dark made it to Hong Kong’s cinemas. It was petrifying, watching a blind Audrey stumble around, stalked and terrorized like prey. I’m glad Mother didn’t have to watch. Fear isn’t romantic.

Listen, kid, you want to tell this story? I’m getting to the Ron part. Didn’t you learn in your writing school that stories need history, plot, suspense? Character flaws? Otherwise the beginning muddles to the middle and you thank god it’s The End.

Southern Connecticut State was a bore, but it was better than high school.

The boys were less frantic. I majored in something. All I cared about was dance. My feet, though! They felt way too big, having ballooned to a seven and a half.

Fall of sophomore year, Ron Andrews danced into my life.

His troupe was performing “Dance Nostalgia.” Astaire routines. Porter, Kern, Gershwin. Ron did this solo soft-shoe number. The grand finale was him leaping onto a straight-back chair, tipping it over, and sliding toward the apron’s edge on his knees. I jumped up, shouted, “Bravo,” not caring what anyone thought. Maybe I started something, or maybe he was just that good, because the whole audience rose in a swell, cheering.

Later, backstage, Ron stood there, a towel round his neck. In his T-shirt and tights, one leg cocked on a stool, he looked like a blond William Holden. People congratulated; voices rose in a frenzy. He wasn’t very tall, but there in the center of all that adulation, he was a giant.

When we were introduced, I couldn’t help gushing, “You were incredible. Absolutely, amazingly marvelous!” He smiled, nodded in acknowledgement, and that was that.

Back at the dorm that night, I cried myself silly. It was such a weird sensation. I mean, I didn’t know the guy to save my life, and crying wasn’t my thing.

The next day, I went along to audition for their troupe’s summer stock.

I was a good, but not brilliant, dancer. The point was, it didn’t matter a whole lot whether or not I performed. Other students had rehearsed for weeks, desperate to make the cut.

My friend Sara co-opted me as her “male” partner. I’d agreed, but that was before Ron. Of course, I couldn’t very well back out now, not when the show had to go on.