I hugged Ruby and thanked Helen. I was grateful and ecstatic. Then something occurred.
“Isn’t this trip dangerous?” I asked when we were alone. “What if you’re caught?”
“Give it a rest, will ya?” Ruby snapped.
After that, I kept my mouth shut.
Ruby and I needed clothes for the trip, so we went out and spent a fortune. We bought outfits in wool, cotton, and rayon, because those fabrics were produced in America. Not only had the amount and types of fabric been dramatically cut to help the war effort, but the range in colors had also been reduced, since the chemicals used for dyes had shifted to military purposes. What hues remained had all-American names: Victory Gold, Gallant Blue, Valor Red, and Patriot Green. My favorite skirt had a pattern of Vs done in Morse code-three dots and a single dash-to symbolize V for victory. We splurged and used our entire ration of three pairs of shoes for the year in one day.
Joe was to be the cherry on top. He’d finished half of his training and had managed to swing a couple days off to meet us. When Ruby asked the production folks if Joe could come to the set, they agreed, saying, “Anything for our boys.”
Charlie arranged for newspaper photographers to see us off, so Ruby and I planned our travel ensembles accordingly. We were entertainers; we needed to appear alluring yet approachable. Ruby wore a knee-length skirt, a twin set, and a pair of wedges. I wore a ruffled blouse and a cotton dirndl skirt printed in a red, white, and blue pattern, and red canvas platforms with brass studs. We painted our nails with Cutex’s Alert varnish and applied Elizabeth Arden Velva Leg Film to our legs to give us the appearance of wearing stockings, even though the cream stained the insides of our skirts an awful yellow. We used eyebrow pencil to draw lines up the backs of our legs for seams.
A car and driver met us at Union Station in Los Angeles, and we were sped west along Sunset Boulevard. We made the jog over to Hollywood Boulevard and arrived at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel like we were real movie stars. (Big change since the last time I was here!) Once we got to our suite, we dressed for a night on the town: Ruby in a black crepe gown and a black snood (like Hedy Lamarr), I in a royal-blue crepe gown shirred at the waist with my seal fur thrown over my shoulders. We both used Tussy Jeep Red lipstick-“Lovely as a Jeep; attention-getting as a Major.” When the front desk called to notify us that Joe had arrived, we primped for a few more minutes, then rode the elevator to the lobby.
Joe wore his uniform, and he sure looked good. A cool sip of water. A man with the world by the tail. He grinned as he strode toward us. He stopped just before Ruby so he could give her the full head-to-toe. “You’re a succulent dish, baby,” he said, and she was.
He took us to the Coconut Grove. Princess Tai was a very big fish in the minuscule pond of San Francisco Chinatown and a pretty big fish in the moderately sized wartime pond of the San Francisco nightclub scene, but even here-at the apex of glamour and class-she turned heads. She wasn’t a movie star yet, so we were seated on the first tier above the dance floor. “Second-best seats in the joint,” Joe pronounced as he happily surveyed the room.
He was besotted with Ruby, and she was thrilled to see him too. The way they had their hands on each other, I bet they wished they could whisk off to someplace private, but I was there and they did their best to include me. He danced with each of us, and, as usual, other couples made room for Joe and me as we swung through some of our special moves. When we returned to Ruby, he topped off our champagne glasses and told us what was coming next for him in training. Ruby and I plastered interested expressions on our faces, but what in the heck was he talking about? He had us back at the hotel by midnight. Ruby needed to be rested for her big day, but Joe came in for a while and they spent some time alone in her room. I put up my hair in curlers and tried not to listen.
The next morning, Ruby kept her face clean of makeup, as she’d been told to do, but I dolled up. I was going to a movie studio; I wanted to look fabulous. I swept up the front and sides of my hair to form a waved pompadour, using a foam doughnut to increase the volume.
Joe was waiting with the studio car when we got downstairs. He put a hand on the small of Ruby’s back as he helped her into the backseat. It was a short drive to Paramount Studios. A tall blond woman carrying a clipboard greeted us. Her name was Betty, and she managed to come across as both authoritative and stunning. “The director wants to meet you before you go to Hair and Makeup,” she explained. She ushered us through the soundstage-cavernous and dark, with a sensuously lit set of a nightclub built in the center-where David Butler was going over blocking details. Famous! He’d directed a few Shirley Temple movies and had just wrapped Road to Morocco. He shook hands with Joe, nodded to me, and eyeballed Ruby as though he were checking the freshness of a fish.
“I’ve heard great things about you.” He motioned for Ruby to turn so he could get the 360-degree view. “I haven’t seen your act, so can you show me both dances-the one with the bubble and the one with the feathers?”
“They’re fans,” Ruby corrected him.
He gave her a wink, pleased with her spunk.
“How much of me is going to show?” she asked, her rotation complete.
“How much can I get?” he asked mischievously.
Ruby tipped a finger at him. “You’re the one who has to deal with the decency codes, not me.”
He laughed. “Don’t worry about a thing. You’ll be plenty decent.”
He asked Betty to escort us to Ruby’s dressing room. We went back outside and strolled down a path lined with perfectly cut box hedges. When Gary Cooper and Ingrid Bergman walked past us, I practically had to pinch myself. Ruby fluttered her eyelids at me, delighted. It felt like we’d arrived in heaven. Joe beamed too. He’d have plenty of stories to tell when he returned to Minter Field.
The dressing room was small but elegant. Betty pointed to a carton that protected a pair of flawless gardenias for Ruby to wear. Then Betty whisked us to Hair and Makeup, and we watched as folks painted Ruby’s face and squeezed a wig over her head with hair that came down past her rear end.
“They must be going for a Godiva look,” Ruby commented.
Betty shrugged. Apparently no one had bothered to inform her.
“We’ll have the body makeup girl take care of you in your dressing room,” Betty said. “Can you two make it back by yourselves? I’ve arranged for someone to take Joe on a tour of the studio.”
Joe docilely allowed himself to be led away by Betty, and Ruby and I wandered back to her dressing room. A few minutes later, the makeup girl arrived, and I showed her how Ruby liked her powder applied. After the girl left, I helped Ruby into a silk robe and pinned the gardenias over her left ear. Then we stood-because Ruby didn’t want to smudge her makeup-and waited. Finally, we heard a knock at the door. I answered it to find Betty nervously scrutinizing her clipboard. Two men in dark suits with gray felt fedoras pulled low over their foreheads loomed behind her. Mr. Butler had tagged along too.
“These men are from the FBI. They’re searching for…” Betty glanced at her clipboard then back at me. “They’re calling her Kimiko Fukutomi.”
The men impatiently pushed Betty aside. One of them put his meaty palm on the door and shoved it open against my pathetic resistance. What did I think holding it closed would accomplish? That I’d give Ruby a chance to climb out the window in her robe? Where could she possibly have escaped to?
The FBI agents planted themselves in the middle of the room, their legs spread to hold them solidly to the ground, their fists clasped in front of their privates. Betty and Mr. Butler crowded into the dressing room too and positioned themselves a little to the side. Ruby’s gardenias, warmed by the presence of so many bodies, sent forth their stiflingly sweet scent.