“I wrote to all my friends,” I answered, trying to stay bland, “hoping someone would help me.”
A shiver ran through Grace.
I went on. “I wrote to people we’d worked with, gossip columnists like Ed Sullivan-”
“The skunk who ratted out Dorothy Toy?” Grace sneered.
“Can you believe we lived in the same building with her and didn’t know she was a Jap?” I asked.
Grace winced. It killed me to use that word, but I wanted to see her reaction.
“Anyway,” I continued, “most people wrote back to say they couldn’t help me. Some didn’t bother to reply. Helen’s the only one of our old gang who wrote to me when I was in Topaz.”
“We’ve been writing to each other all along,” said Helen. “We’re very close friends.”
Grace leaned across me and tapped Helen on the arm. “You told me not to write to Ruby. You said we could get in trouble for writing to her-a Jap, as you put it. Especially me, since I’d lived with her.”
“If you say so,” Helen said, pulling away from Grace’s touch.
“I say so!”
“A story about a tiger can only be accepted as truth when told by three people,” Helen retorted.
Grace pushed herself off the mattress. Tommy’s slippers fell with two soft thuds. She planted herself at the foot of the bed. “You’re saying it’s my word against yours?”
Helen looked away. Grace’s face sagged. What a good actress.
“I can’t believe this. What did I ever do to you?” she asked.
Helen set her jaw. “You hurt our friend-”
“I didn’t-”
“Keep singing that song, Grace,” Helen said. “It seems to be working well for you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I think you know.”
“Are you talking about the rumors?” Grace asked Helen, disappointment dripping from her voice. “Is that why you never wrote to me?”
“I wrote you a letter,” Helen replied. “That’s more than you wrote to Ruby.”
“You told me not to write to her!” Grace repeated, practically shouting. She pressed her lips together and tried to compose herself. “And in case you haven’t figured it out yet, I’m as much a victim in all this as Ruby. Do you have any comprehension of what I’ve lost? Our friends stopped speaking to me. I was blackballed-”
Helen cut her off. “Victim?” She spat out the word indignantly. “You promised you’d stay with me, but you deserted me-”
“What did you want me to do? Sit in my apartment until I went broke?”
“You were protecting your own skin-”
“As usual,” Grace finished for her bitterly. “Jesus, you’re worse than George Louie.”
“Let’s not fight,” I said. So all of a sudden I’m the peacemaker, when I was the one who was chiseled out of Hollywood, lost Joe, and was sent to a camp. Maybe they thought they knew everything about me, but there was one thing they hadn’t counted on… I was down but not out.
I turned to Grace. “I wrote to Helen when I was released from Topaz and asked her to be my dresser,” I bragged.
Grace’s mood changed in an instant. “How can you afford it?” she asked, competitive as ever.
I blurted the answer. “I’m making four hundred big ones a week.”
Grace frowned. She might have had top billing and a suite, but I was making more money than she was!
“Who’s your agent?” she asked.
“Sam Bernstein. He’s in New York,” I answered, one-upping her again.
“How nice for you,” Grace said. “Well, look, I should be getting to bed. I hope you don’t mind…”
I was glad to be free of the camp, but the idea of spending the next month-and however many shows-with these two was about as tantalizing as being tied in a burlap sack with a bunch of wailing cats. Then Grace did something that really yanked my knickers. She opened her makeup case, rummaged around, pulled out an envelope, and tossed it in my lap.
“Your savings,” she said. “I’ve kept them for you all this time. Now good night.”
WOULDN’T YOU KNOW it, a week later Grace dumped Max and got Sam to take her on as a client. Cutthroat bitch. Her fee jumped above mine, to which Helen commented, “It doesn’t surprise me. Does it surprise you?” Not one bit, but it didn’t jibe with her taking care of my money or putting my things in storage either.
Sam called to ask if I’d like to be booked on a whole new way-down-south production with the Oriental Danseuse, Ming and Ling, and Jack and Irene Mak’s magic show for an Oriental Fantasy Revue, “singing, dancing, laughing, and magic in one fun-packed hour.”
“Don’t do it,” Helen advised when I told her about the offer. “Grace acts like she’s taken the ladder to the clouds, but I have her letters. She can’t get any other work.”
But when I called Sam back, he laid it out for me straight. “So? Grace has a problem up north. You have a problem too, but not in the south-at least I’m hoping that’s the case. Besides, you’re new to the road. The Oriental Danseuse and the others have recognizable names. You’ll do more shows and get more fans if I book you together. Neither of you is in a position to be choosy.”
“Are you sure Grace wants to do it?”
“She’s the one who suggested it!”
So she was giving me a hand like I did for her when she came back from Los Angeles, but I wasn’t sure I wanted it. I told Sam I needed to talk to Grace before I made my decision. After I hung up, I waited until Helen took Tommy downstairs to the hotel coffee shop for lunch, then I changed into a day dress of blood-red crepe, pinned a pair of gardenias above my ear, and went to Grace’s room. She answered wearing a towel around her dripping body.
“I’m taking a bath,” she said, waving me in.
I followed her to the bathroom and watched as she slipped back into the bubbles.
“Do you mind if I open the window? I get claustrophobic nowadays.” I shrugged, embarrassed. “Ever since the camp.”
Grace let that sink in. Then she asked, “Will you tell me what happened after those men came for you at Paramount?”
My eyes narrowed.
“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” Grace added.
“Will you tell me about Joe?” A challenge. “Helen tells me the two of you became an item.”
Grace shifted in the bath, and water sloshed over the edge. I tossed a towel on the spill and dabbed at it with the tip of my shoe.
“You don’t have to talk about him if you don’t want to.” I mimicked her perfectly.
Her eyes darkened. “All right. Tit for tat,” she said. “What happened after those men took you away?”
“You got my job.”
A tiny muscle under Grace’s right eye twitched. “I don’t know how many ways I can say this or how I can make you believe me, but I didn’t report you.”
I held her gaze, considering. Aw, what the hell. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to have everything gorgeous and perfect, and then suddenly have it all taken from you? That’s what Topaz was like.”
I told her some details about life in the camp and how ashamed I was to be there; she murmured sympathies. When I came to the end, she pulled the plug and stepped out of the tub. Not a wrinkle. Not a bump. Not an ounce of unwanted fat. Not an inch of skin that wasn’t the color of cream. She was still flawless, but then she hadn’t been through what I’d been through. I handed her a towel. As we were about to leave the bathroom, she put a hand on my arm and asked, “What about your parents?”
“I honestly can’t say what they did or didn’t do. I want to believe they’re innocent-”
“What I meant was, have you been in contact with them?”
“It’s not like I can call them.”
“You could write,” she suggested.