Amy Bloom: Lucky Us

I did miss Mrs. Gruber. I missed my father too. I refused to think about my mother, except when she showed up in my dreams, lost in the desert or dying by the side of a highway, every couple of nights. I kept writing to my father and tearing up the letters, even though I knew what he was and I knew he wasn’t worrying about me. I knew he didn’t give a tinker’s dam — which is what he said all the time, and he’d explained that it wasn’t a curse, it wasn’t “damn,” it was “dam,” which was a very small piece of something you use before the soldering of tin takes place, and so I used the expression all the time and felt that I was cursing like crazy — but secretly. I wrote him once a month, and saved the pieces until my feelings passed, and then I threw the pieces away.

IRIS WASN’T SURE WHAT KIND OF PARTY IT WAS. TWO WOMEN IN matching pink silk jackets and long black dresses stepped in front of her, up the stairs to a big house. The doorman or butler was a very large Negro man, in a white satin suit from the eighteenth century and a white powdered wig tied with a black ribbon. He had two gold teeth and he acted like he was not just pleased, but completely delighted to see every woman who walked through the door. He held the door open for Iris and winked.

The women in front of Iris handed their jackets to another man in a white powdered wig and white satin suit and Iris followed them into the larger room. She kept her face still. This was a living room the way Cleveland Stadium was a baseball field. Three girls wearing white satin tap pants and white satin court shoes, and no tops, with pink ribbons around their necks and pink bows in their towering white wigs, walked past Iris, offering pigs in blankets and scallops wrapped in bacon. The girls had little mouche marks near their eyes and rouge on the tips of their nipples. Iris followed the two women in the long black dresses past big satin poufs on the floor and the pale-pink satin divans. (“My goodness, those things’ll stain like crazy,” a girl standing behind Iris said.)

Two tall men in white breeches held giant horns of fruit. Iris guessed they were blond under their white wigs, because their chests were smooth and their eyes were blue. They were barefoot. A woman in front of Iris took a grape and pinched one of the fruit holders’ nipples until he winced a little. Iris gasped. “What a nice party,” the woman said, and she reached under her dress and unsnapped her garters. The woman looked around and put her black pumps and her stockings and panties under one of the divans.

Four dwarves in white turbans and bright-pink vests and matching sultans’ pants came through with jeweled hookahs. They sat down on the big poufs, and women crowded around them on the floor, smoking and laughing. Iris was pretty sure she heard Tallulah Bankhead laughing. A pale woman, beautiful like a silent movie star, with black-lined eyes, black spit curls, and a long, backless silver dress, pulled on Iris’s hand. She asked Iris if she was new and who she’d come with. Iris told her that yesterday, when she was having her makeup done by Francisco Diego, Patsy Kelly’s assistant came by handing out invitations, and she’d given Iris a thick white envelope. Patsy Kelly’s assistant kissed Francisco and said, No invite for you, and he’d laughed. Patsy must have spotted you, the pale woman said now. Iris smiled. I’m Sylvia, the woman said. Iris, Iris said. Sylvia waved her hand and a dwarf wearing a white fez and no vest came by, carrying a tray of pink ladies. Sylvia handed one to Iris. Welcome to Paradise, sweetie pie, she said. Iris and Sylvia sat down on a divan.

A woman came up to them and leaned down to kiss Sylvia. Sylvia introduced Iris and the woman kissed Iris too. She trailed a feather along Iris’s shoulders. Iris sat very still until the woman walked away. Another woman came by and took a sip of Iris’s pink lady, watching Iris over the rim. She finished the drink in a swallow, and she and Sylvia walked away. Iris felt a hand pulling on her hem. A woman was sitting on the floor beside the divan, putting her hand under Iris’s dress and sliding it up her thigh. She brushed her fingers over the inside of Iris’s thighs and over her panties. Iris sat as still as she could. This was not the kind of party, like the ones in Dellie Bryson’s finished basement back home, where you could have a little fun and slap someone and go back to having fun, on your own terms. Iris heard a woman scream in another room but it didn’t sound like a person offended or injured, and the hand was still there, flicking in and out of Iris’s panties. It was possible that in this big house, with all these beautiful women (and the ones who were not beautiful were built like goddesses, and the ones who were neither looked clever and powerful), there was someone whose hand Iris would actually welcome. Iris said, “Thank you,” to the woman sitting on the floor, although that seemed ridiculous, and she walked into the next room, where the buffet was.

Food was lined up, from dinner to dessert — which was a pretty girl with whipped cream and strawberries, laid in thick waves, from her chest to her feet. Women in their slips and high heels, in their cocktail dresses with the backs partially unzipped, were filling their plates. A quartet played all the popular songs, and on the far side of the buffet the two women in long black dresses were doing a slow fox-trot. A brunette in a scarlet kimono and black silk pants was eating steadily from a plate piled with lobster tails. I love lobster tails, she said. I mean it — I think they are the greatest thing ever. Her voice was throaty and warm and she sounded like an American girl, but a little softer and sweeter at the edges. Rose Sawyer, she said, and instead of shaking hands, she gave Iris a lobster tail. Let’s find a spot, Rose said, and they walked to where more women were dancing. She sat Iris down on an empty couch. What a crowd, Rose said. You stay here, beautiful girl. She came back with more lobster tails and an unsteady tower of oysters on the half shell, blinis with caviar piled like flapjacks, and two Champagne flutes tucked into her bodice.

Iris put her hand to her hair to fix it, and the dwarf with the white fez came by. Champagne? he said. Oh, please, Iris said. Rose looked at her. Well, here I am thinking, Look at this little bumpkin, and here you are, having your way with Armand and who knows what else. Shame on me, she said. Oyster? Iris opened her mouth.

This was not the kind of party where you said, Oh, I’ve never eaten oysters, or, Oh, gosh, they look wet and disgusting, which they really did. If oysters were the path to parties like these and beautiful, dazzling, dark Rose Sawyer, Iris thought she could toss back oysters like cold beer on a summer day. She managed two and chased them with Champagne.

“Aren’t you a pro,” Rose said.

“Not really,” Iris said. “I’m from Ohio.” There was no reason to lie to Rose.

“Of course you are,” Rose said. “You are my beautiful American baby. Dance?”

Iris had never danced with another girl, except bumping around the room with Eva, to practice for a party or a show. Iris always made Eva lead so she could work on her steps, but then she had to put up with being led by Eva, who was fierce and wrong-footed on the dance floor and only came up to Iris’s collarbone. Rose Sawyer was about an inch taller than Iris.

“Who should lead?” Rose said.

“I could,” Iris said quietly.

“But you don’t want to,” Rose said, and she put a strong arm around Iris’s waist. All Iris’s dancing, her show routines, waltzing with her father, the senior-year parties with Harry Bledsoe and Jim Cummings, who were the best dancers in Windsor, faded away. She was dancing for the first time, right now, her face against Rose’s smooth, powdered cheek. Breast to red silk breast, thigh to black silk thigh. They did two promenades and a slow twist, as if they’d been practicing, and Rose pulled Iris back to the divan. More Champagne appeared.