It was all fun, except for one thing: Peg was always trying to be responsible and head home early, while Billy was always trying to get her to stay out late. I remember one night at the Algonquin when Billy said, “Would you like another drink, my wife?” and I saw a look of real pain cross Peg’s face.
“I shouldn’t,” she said. “It’s not good for me, Billy. Let me collect my thoughts for a moment and try to be sensible.”
“I didn’t ask if you should have a drink, Pegsy; I asked if you wanted one.”
“Well, of course I want one. I always want one. But make it a mild one, please.”
“Shall I cut to the chase and order you three mild ones at the same time?”
“Just one mild one after another, William. That’s how I like to live my life these days.”
“To your very good health,” he said, lifting his glass to toast her and then waving to get the waiter’s attention. “As long as the man keeps ’em coming, I might be able to survive an evening of mild cocktails.”
—
That night, Celia and I peeled off from Billy and Peg, to go have our own adventures. When we stumbled home at our standard gauzy-gray presunrise hour, we were startled to find all the lights on in the living room, and an unexpected tableaux within. There was Peg sprawled out on the couch—fully dressed, unconscious, and snoring. She had an arm flung over her face, and one of her shoes was kicked off. Billy, still wearing his white dinner jacket, was dozing in a chair next to her. On the table between them was a pile of empty bottles and full ashtrays.
Billy woke up when we walked in and said, “Oh, hello girls.” His voice was slurred, and his eyes were Bing cherries.
“I’m sorry,” I said, in my own slurred voice. “Didn’t mean to disturb you.”
“You can’t disturb her.” Billy waved an arm vaguely in the direction of the couch. “She’s pickled. I couldn’t get her up the last flight of steps. Say, maybe you girls can help me . . . ?”
So the three of us drunks tried to help an even drunker person get upstairs to bed. Peg was not a small woman, and we were not at our strongest or most graceful, so this was no easy operation. We more or less dragged her up the stairs the way you would transport a rolled-up carpet—thumping our way along until we reached the door to the fourth-floor apartments. I’m afraid we laughed like sailors on leave the whole time. I’m also afraid that was an uncomfortable trip for Peg—or that it would have been uncomfortable, had she been conscious.
And then we opened the door and there was Olive—the last face you want to see when you are at your drunkest and most guilty.
In one glance, Olive took in the situation. Not that it was difficult to read.
I expected her to strike out in anger, but instead she dropped to her knees and cradled Peg’s head. Olive looked up at Billy, and her face was overcome with sorrow.
“Olive,” he said. “Hey. Look. You know how it is.”
“Please get me a wet towel, someone,” she asked in a low voice. “A cold one.”
“I wouldn’t know how to do that,” said Celia, sliding down the wall.
I ran into the bathroom and flopped about until I could solve the problem of how to turn on a light, how to procure a towel, how to turn on a tap, how to discern hot water from cold, how to soak the towel without also soaking myself (I utterly failed at that step), and how to find my way out of the bathroom again.
By the time I got back, Edna Parker Watson had joined the scene (wearing an adorable red silk pajama set and a lush gold dressing gown, I couldn’t help but notice) and was now helping Olive drag Peg into her apartment. The women, I’m sorry to say, looked as though they had done this before.
Edna took the damp towel from me and pressed it against Peg’s forehead. “Come now, Peg, let’s wake up now.”
Billy was standing back a bit, wavering on his feet, looking green around the gills. He looked his age, for once.
“She just wanted to have some fun,” he said weakly.
Olive stood up and said—again, in that low voice—“You always do this to her. You always give her the spur when you know she needs the reins.”
Billy looked for a moment as if he were going to apologize, but then made the classic drunkard’s mistake, instead, of digging in. “Ah, don’t blow your lid about it. She’ll be all right. She just wanted to have a few more when we got home.”
“She’s not like you,” Olive said, and unless I was mistaken, her eyes were sprinkled with tears. “She can’t stop after ten drinks. She never could.”
Edna said gently, “I think it’s time for you to go, William. You, as well, girls.”
—
The next day, Peg stayed in bed until late afternoon. But aside from that, business went on as usual, and nobody mentioned what had transpired the evening before.
And by the next night, Peg and Billy were out at the Algonquin all over again, buying rounds for the whole house.
FOURTEEN
Billy had committed the outrageous act of calling auditions for the play—real auditions, advertised in the trade papers and everything—in order to get a higher class of performer than the Lily was accustomed to.
This was a wildly new development. We’d never had auditions before. Our shows always got cast through word of mouth. Peg and Olive and Gladys knew enough of the actors and dancers around the neighborhood to be able to pull together a cast without anyone having to try out. But Billy wanted a better class of performers than what we could find within the perimeter of Hell’s Kitchen, so official auditions it was.
For an entire day, then, we had a stream of hopefuls pouring into the Lily—dancers, singers, actors. I got to sit with Billy and Peg and Olive and Edna as they reviewed the aspirants. I found it to be such an anxiety-producing experience. Watching all those people on the stage who all wanted something so badly—so glaringly and openly—made me nervous.
And then, very quickly, it made me bored.
(Anything can get tedious after enough time, Angela—even watching heartbreaking acts of naked vulnerability. Especially when everyone is singing the same song, doing the same dance steps, or repeating the same lines, hour after hour.)
We saw the dancers first. It was just one pretty girl after another, trying to stampede her way into our new chorus line. The sheer volume and variation of them made my head spin. Auburn curls on this one. Fine blond hair on that one. This one tall. That one short. A big-hipped, huffing, snorting, dancing dragon of a girl. A woman who was far too old to be dancing for a living anymore, but who had not yet boxed up her hopes and dreams. A girl with sharp bangs who was so awfully severe in her efforts, it looked like she was marching, not dancing. All of them breathlessly hoofing with all their hearts. Puffing away in a hot panic of tap dancing and optimism. Kicking up great clouds of dust motes in the footlights. They were sweaty and they were loud. When it came to dancers, their ambitions were not merely visible, but audible.
Billy made a slight effort to engage Olive in the audition process, but the effort was futile. She was punishing us, it seemed, by barely watching the proceedings. In fact, she was reading the editorial page of the Herald Tribune.
“Say, Olive, did you think that little birdie was attractive?” he asked her, after one very pretty girl had sung a very pretty song for us.
“No.” Olive didn’t even look up from her newspaper.