deal of loose cash, and they were clearly in a dubious line of work. (If I had to guess, I would wager that their line of employment was: racketeers.) At first they were all in service to Celia—so deferential, so grateful for her attentions, sweating with nervousness about making the beautiful girl and her friend happy. Would the ladies like another bottle of champagne? Would the ladies like some crab legs ordered up to the room? Would the ladies like to see the Presidential Suite at the Biltmore? Would the ladies like the radio on or off?
I was still new at this game, and I found it amusing that these thugs were so servile to us. Cowed by our powers, and all that. It made me want to laugh at them, in all their weakness: Men are so easy to control!
But then—not long into our visit to the Presidential Suite—the shift came, and Celia was suddenly crammed between two of those men on the couch, and they were no longer looking servile or weak. It wasn’t anything they were doing per se; it was just a change of tone, and it frightened me. Something had shifted in their faces, and I didn’t like it. The third man was now eyeing me, and he didn’t appear as though he were interested in joking around anymore, either. The only way I can describe the change in the room was: You’re having a delightful picnic, and then suddenly there’s a tornado. The barometric pressure drops. The sky goes black. The birds go silent. This thing is coming straight for you.
“Vivvie,” said Celia in that exact moment, “run downstairs and buy me cigarettes.”
“Right now?” I asked.
“Go,” she said. “And don’t come back.”
I made for the door, just before the third man reached me—and to my shame, I closed the door on my friend and left her in there. I left her because she’d told me to, but still—it felt rotten. Whatever those men were about to do in there, Celia was on her own. She’d sent me from the room either because she didn’t want me seeing what was about to be done to her, or she didn’t want it done to me, too. Either way, I felt like a child, being banished like that. I also felt afraid of those men, and afraid for Celia, and I felt left out. I hated it. I paced the lobby of the hotel for an hour, wondering if I should alert the hotel manager. But alert him to what?
Celia eventually came down by herself—unescorted by any of the men who had so solicitously led us to the elevator earlier that evening.
She spotted me in the lobby, walked over, and said, “Well, I call that a lousy way to end a night.”
“Are you all right?” I asked.
“Yeah, I’m terrific,” she said. She tugged at her dress. “Do I look all right?”
She looked just as beautiful as ever—except for the shiner over her left eye.
“Like love’s young dream itself,” I said.
She saw me looking at her swollen eye, and said, “Don’t squawk about this, Vivvie. Gladys’ll fix it. She’s the best at covering up black eyes. Is there a cab? If a cab would be kind enough to appear, I’ll take it.”
I found her a cab, and we made our way home without another word.
Did the events of that evening leave Celia traumatized?
You would think so, wouldn’t you?
But I’m ashamed to say, Angela: I don’t know. I never talked to her about it. I certainly never saw any sign of trauma in my friend. But then again, I probably wasn’t looking for signs of trauma. Nor would I have known what to look for. Maybe I was hoping that this ugly incident would just disappear (like the black eye itself) if we never mentioned it. Or maybe I thought Celia was accustomed to being assaulted, given her rough origins. (God help us, maybe she was.)
There were so many questions I could have asked Celia that evening in the taxi (starting with “Are you really all right?”), but I didn’t. Nor did I thank her for having saved me from certain attack. I was embarrassed that I’d needed saving—embarrassed that she saw me as being more innocent and fragile than herself. Until that night, I’d been able to kid myself that Celia Ray and I were exactly the same—just two equally worldly and gutsy women, conquering the city and having fun. But clearly that wasn’t true. I had been