“You did a pretty good job,” I said, attempting buoyancy, trying now to find a path back into the light for her.
“When Grace came back alone from Hollywood, I didn’t feel one drop of guilt,” Helen went on. “And I now had Grace to myself.”
I know Grace had been devastated by all we’d just heard. Nevertheless, the comment sent her, with unexpected speed, straight up onto her high horse. But then none of us was acting normally. “Me? Don’t throw me in with what you did to Ruby!”
Did this mean she might be able to forgive me for accusing her?
“I love you, Grace,” Helen said. “You are my true-heart friend.”
“I love you too-at least I thought I did,” Grace replied. “And I’m sorry about what happened to you. I really am. But what does any of that have to do with what you did to Ruby… and to me?”
“I loved you, but you always preferred her,” Helen said, going back in time. “We’d all barely met when the two of you got an apartment together…”
“You found the apartment for us. You orchestrated that.” Grace shook with anger and frustration. “And that was ten years ago.”
I’d flipped and shown my true emotions, and look what it had let loose. Alliances were shifting and battle lines were being redrawn. But what else could have happened? I mean, this was Grace, Helen, and me. Had it ever been otherwise between us? Still, now that I was back to myself, it was startling to see Grace get het up on my behalf when only a few minutes ago I’d been accusing her of such terrible things.
“I saw you, Grace.” Something ravenous scuttled below the surface of Helen’s skin. “I picked you. Yes, I found the apartment for the two of you. I knew it would only be a matter of time before you’d see Ruby for what she is. So again, yes, I figured out about Ruby and Joe and what it would do to you if you discovered the truth about them. But I didn’t guess that you’d run away and leave me. I went to Los Angeles with Eddie to find you. And later, when Ruby was sent away, you still thought about her.”
“How could I not?” Grace asked. “She’d disappeared and-”
“But we were supposed to be true-heart friends at last-just you and me.”
“True-heart friends?” Grace repeated the words like they were poison in her mouth. “Did you start the rumors about me?”
“You were right about George Louie,” Helen answered. “He’s a bad man, but the more those rumors damaged you, the more you needed me. Then you deserted me again by running away to the Chop-Suey Circuit. In your own way, you hurt me as deeply as Ruby did.”
As I listened, I understood at last that the dark shadow side of love had been much stronger among the three of us than it had ever been among Joe, Grace, and me.
“But what about later?” Grace asked. “When we were all together again, you ganged up with Ruby against me.”
“I couldn’t let Ruby learn what I’d done.” Each word Helen spoke came out a jagged shard. She had planned and plotted from a place of such misery that looking at her was like looking at a mortally wounded animal.
I’d never been one to put the welfare of kids at the top of my list, but I glanced over at Tommy. He’d coiled his arms around his calves and pulled his knees under his chin. His eyes were twin black pools.
Helen now appealed to me. “It wasn’t until you wrote from Topaz that it finally sunk in what I’d done to you. I felt guilty and knew I had to atone. Once I joined you on the road, I arranged your travel and your hotel rooms.” Her voice darkened. “I’m from a good family-one of the best in Chinatown-and yet I lugged your suitcases, cleaned your bubble, and served as your maid. Every night I stared into your private parts to glue on your patch.”
“I paid you to do that,” I said, as though that would make a difference. I glanced at Grace. She’d gone pale. Yes, I’d made Helen and Grace share the same indignities-the puffs, the powder, and my vagina just inches from their faces. My shoulders slumped.
“I thought all that was finally over,” Helen stammered mournfully. “I was going to find Grace the perfect house in Miami. We were going to be neighbors. We were going be together. Now what am I supposed to do?”
“You can still come with me to Vegas,” I offered in a true display of friendship… or did I just want to prove once and for all I was the best and most desirable?
“I don’t want you,” Helen said, which had a deflating effect on me, as you might imagine. She appealed to Grace. “Even after everything I’ve done for you, you never once saw me. I only wanted a true-heart friend, who would be all mine. I didn’t want to share you.” Her voice cracked as she began to weep again. “But how could I have a best friend when there was someone like her”-she inclined her head toward me-“who was funny, beautiful, talented, and always trying to keep you for herself? You two always left me out.”
Helen stared at us so piteously that Grace sunk to the floor and embraced her. There were no secrets left between us. Despair over the terrible mistakes each of us had made and the cruelties we’d inflicted on each other swam through my body. Tommy finally got up his courage to approach his mother-tears rolling down her cheeks, her entire body emanating sorrow, grief, and guilt. I reached out, grabbed him by the shoulders, and held him to me.
THE NEXT AFTERNOON, a car picked us up at the Victoria to take us to the Maxine Elliott Theatre at Broadway and Thirty-Ninth, where Toast of the Town would be filmed live. We sat together in the backseat, staring straight ahead, our arms and thighs touching, Tommy on Helen’s lap. None of us spoke. I’d lived much of my life by my mother’s saying: The crow that was crying a few minutes ago is already laughing now. Not this time. We were exhausted from restless sleep, nervous about how the day would unfold, and still undone by last night’s revelations. The car pulled to the curb in front of the theater. Helen cracked open the door. Without looking at us, she said, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for everything.” Then, she swung the door wide, set Tommy on the sidewalk, and slid out behind him. They headed for the entrance. Grace scooted across the seat, hesitated, and turned to me.
“Are we really going to do this?” she asked.
“Of course, we are. We’d better catch up, or she’ll go on without us,” I said, trying for a joke. Could Grace hear the depth of my remorse for suspecting and disbelieving her? Please, but begging wasn’t my way.
Once inside, we were taken to a dressing room, where we wordlessly changed into our costumes. I glimpsed Helen’s scar, and my entire body ached for her.
Someone knocked on the door.
“Come in,” I called, using my lilting professional voice.
Ed Sullivan entered and closed the door behind him. For someone who was so powerful through his writing he didn’t seem to have much personality. He scanned us up and down, nodding approvingly at our satin shoes, our fuchsia-colored costumes that showed plenty of thigh, and our hair and makeup that made us look simultaneously American healthy and accessible and Chinese exquisite and alluring.
“Do this right, young ladies,” he said, his voice toneless, “and I’ll have you back plenty of times.”
We may have been hurt and disheartened, but when a man like that presents you with the world, you get swept up in the possibilities. Grace put a hand on the small of my back, where it met Helen’s hand.
“Would you consider returning next month to do an Indian number?” Ed asked. “I’m imagining something to Artie Shaw’s rendition of ‘Indian Love Call.’ Viewers will get a bang out of seeing three girls come out dressed as squaws and then turn into little Chinese dancers with pretty American voices. Hilarious!”