“V in Morse code,” he observed, noting the pattern on Grace’s favorite skirt. “V for Victory Girl! Ha! Haven’t seen that before.”
“V for victory,” Grace mumbled as his examination began.
WE WERE REQUIRED to be held for a minimum of seventy-two hours, when our test results would come back. More women were thrown in the cell with us. Grace kept going on about how courageous I was, saying, “You’re so brave, Helen. Brave!” Well, I’d had experience. After eight hours, Ruby started to come around, although she had a terrible hangover. I knew she was back to herself when she asked, “Have you offered a bribe yet?” Crackerjack, our Ruby. And it only took ten dollars for the guard to let me call the hotel. Ten minutes later, we heard Jack Mak arguing with the sergeant at the front desk, who asked, “You their pimp, or what?”
Jack slammed out the door and returned a few minutes later with Irene, their kids, and Tommy. “Those women are traveling with me. They’re my responsibility.” (First I’d heard of it.) “Here’s our playbill for the run we’re doing at Pieces O’Eight. How do you expect me to do three shows a night without them?”
“Shout all you want,” the sergeant said. “No legal procedures exist to get these dames out of the fix they’re in.”
Later that afternoon, around the time I should have been having dinner with Tommy, a guard came through to tell us that he’d just heard on the radio that Hitler had committed suicide. The news rippled through the ninety or so of us in that crowded holding pen but just as quickly subsided. We had our own concerns. The next morning, several women were released, but a dozen or so were declared infected and carted away to a detention facility. They had no way to fight back, no legal recourse. Jack came to tell me that Tommy was fine, bring us food, and update us on all he was doing to get us out. He even brought the manager of the club to talk to the officer in charge, but “rules are rules,” and we had to wait. Grace bore up remarkably well, considering, but Ruby was in a dark mood. She still hadn’t cried about Yori’s death nor had she once tried to flirt with a guard to get out. I worried she might be infected.
That night, new women were brought in, some of whom claimed, like us, to be completely innocent. “I’m here to visit my son before he ships out.” “My fiancé will go mad when he hears what you’ve done to me.” We also heard, “I got separated from my brother” several times, too many times perhaps, so it came as no surprise on the morning of our fourth day that the sixteen-year-old girl we’d met on our first night was pronounced infected and sent away for the duration. We, fortunately, were released.
“Make sure you keep clean down there,” the sergeant at the front desk cautioned as we pushed out the door, “and don’t come back to Norfolk.”
We went to the hotel and took long baths to clean the grime, germs, and the memory of the doctor’s hands off us. I hugged Tommy and promised never to let him go. He buried his face in my neck and cried. Ruby wept in her room, beginning, finally, to deal with her brother’s death. Grace jammed her V for victory skirt into the trash bin under the desk. I considered myself to be the tour manager, but Grace picked up the phone and called Sam Bernstein to cancel the rest of our bookings.
“I don’t give a damn about penalties,” she said into the receiver. “I’ve got money. I’ll pay the penalties.” She listened to Sam, nodding. She glanced in my direction so she could communicate to both of us at the same time. “You’re telling me Charlie still says the weather isn’t good?” she asked, which meant that the show kids hadn’t forgiven her yet and didn’t want her around. She sighed. “Doesn’t matter anyway. We can’t take Ruby to California.” Then, without asking me, she announced, “We’re going to Miami to rest for a couple of weeks and get Ruby back on her feet. Then you’re going to find a gig for just Ruby and me.”
Later that day, we said goodbye to Ming and Ling. Then we saw Irene, Jack, and the kids off at the station. An hour later, we boarded a train to take us south. In Miami, we found a nice hotel right on the shore, checked in to a two-bedroom suite with a shared living room, ordered room service, and vowed to keep life as simple as possible for a while. After lunch, we walked to the beach, sat under an umbrella, stared at the ocean, and let Ruby grieve. We watched Tommy dig in the sand. We let the sound of the waves wash over us. The warmth helped us to heal. The soughing of the palm trees soothed like a mother-shh, shh, shh. A few days later, Germany surrendered. Now all that remained was to finish off the Japs, but how long would that take? I pushed that out of my mind and concentrated on planning our future.
BAD LUCK MAY have brought us to Miami, but all we found there was good luck. After a month of rest, Sam booked Ruby and Grace into Winnie’s Riptide. On opening night, a well-heeled rubber king with vast holdings in Singapore sat in the audience. Ruby performed with her fans, expertly manipulating them until she threw caution-and her feathers-to the wind and stood there, quite unashamed, dressed only in her blue spotlight and that single tiny piece of silk. After that, Ruby and Grace took turns topping the bill each night. The next thing we knew, the rubber king hosted a party for us. The Club Bali-“with South Seas charm and toe-teasing tunes played by two orchestras”-hired Ruby and Grace away from the Riptide. Sam got them substantial raises, and Ruby increased my salary. Six weeks later, they got a gig at the Colonial Inn.
The rubber king bought Ruby a white ermine fur worth thousands of dollars, which she wore for grand entrances. He gave her diamonds-and rubies, of course. He had his chauffeur polish one of his cars-a prewar Cadillac convertible, mint green with white-wall tires-and presented it to Ruby to drive for as long as she liked. Tommy spent his days playing on the beach. Things were going so well that we decided to take the summer off and stay with the rubber king in his mansion in Coral Gables through Florida’s quiet months. I was relieved to see Ruby so happy. Was she “in love”? Hard to say, but she was back to her old self-giggly, chatty, flirtatious, always with a pair of freshly cut gardenias tucked above her left ear. We lazed, danced at parties, shopped, and drank icy daiquiris.
Then, at the end of the first week of August, the United States bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We studied the photographs of the mushroom clouds with a mixture of awe and horror. I thought the Japs deserved what they got, but I didn’t say that to Ruby. Japan surrendered a week later, on August 14. In Miami, people flooded the streets and carried on all night-making love, breaking windows, and overturning cars and trash cans. Church bells rang. Strangers hugged each other. Confetti fell on us like snow, and fireworks lit the sky. Eddie would be coming home soon, and so would Joe. Over breakfast on the veranda, Grace read to us from the letter she’d written to him. “ ‘I’m so looking forward to seeing you, kissing you, and making love to you.’ ” Two weeks later, she received his response. The envelope didn’t have a return address, but the postmark showed that it had been mailed in the United States.
“He’s home already!” Grace said excitedly as she tore open the envelope and pulled out a single sheet of folded paper. She began reading aloud. “ ‘Dear Grace, You’ve tried hard these past months to keep me interested, but it’s finally come time for me to be frank with you. I can’t see you. Please stop writing to me. Joe.’ ”