forward and putting my hand on his arm. “Let’s step outside. There’s no reason for us to be involved in this.”
“And you ain’t in charge of me, sister,” Anthony said, shaking off my hand and throwing me a vicious look.
I recoiled as though I’d been kicked. He’d never snapped at me before.
Edna looked at each of us in turn.
“You’re all infants,” she pronounced mildly. Then she threw another rope of pearls around her neck, and collected her hat, her gloves, and her handbag. “Arthur, I’ll see you at ten o’clock.”
“No, you bloody well won’t!” he shouted. “I won’t be here! How will you like that, I wonder?”
She ignored him.
“Vivian, thank you for your assistance in dressing me,” she said. “Enjoy your evening off. Anthony, come.”
And Edna walked out with my boyfriend, leaving me alone with her husband—both of us shaken and cowed.
I honestly think that if Anthony had not snarled at me, I would have brushed off this entire incident, dismissing it as a meaningless squabble between Edna and her childish, jealous husband. I would have seen it for what it was: a problem that had nothing whatsoever to do with me. I probably would have left the room immediately and gone out for drinks with Peg and Billy.
But Anthony’s reaction had shocked me, and I was rooted where I stood. What had I done to deserve such vitriol? You ain’t in charge of me, sister! What had he meant by that? When had I ever tried to be in charge of Anthony? (Aside from constantly urging him to move to a new apartment, that is. And wanting him to dress and speak differently. And encouraging him to stop using so much slang. And asking him to style his hair in a more conservative manner. And trying to convince him to stop chewing gum all the time. And arguing with him whenever I saw him flirting with a dancer. But apart from that? Why, I gave the boy nothing but freedom.)
“That woman is destroying me,” Arthur said, a few moments after Edna and Anthony had left. “She is a destroyer of men.”
“I’m sorry?” I asked, once I’d found my voice.
“You should keep an eye on that greasy mutt of yours, if you like him. She’ll make a meal out of him. She likes them young.”
Again—if it hadn’t been for Anthony’s flare-up, I would not have paid attention to a word that Arthur Watson was saying. The world, as a collective habit, never paid attention to a word that Arthur Watson said. I should have known better.
“Oh, she wouldn’t . . .” I didn’t even know how to finish that sentence.
“Oh, yes she would,” said Arthur. “You can be sure of it. She always does. You can be sure of it. She already is, you blind little ninny.”
A cloud of black particles seemed to pass over my eyes.
Edna and Anthony?
I felt dizzy, and I reached for the chair behind me.
“I’m going out,” Arthur declared. “Where’s Celia?”
This question made no sense to me. What did Celia have to do with anything?
“Where’s Celia?” I repeated.
“Is she in your room?”
“Probably.”
“Let’s bloody well go get her, then. We’re clearing out of here. Come on, Vivian. Get your things.”
And what did I do?
I followed that fool.
And why did I follow that fool?
Because I was an idiotic child, Angela, and at that age, I would have followed a stop sign.
So this is how it ended up that I spent that beautiful false-spring evening going out on the town with Celia Ray and Arthur Watson.
But not only with Celia and Arthur, as it turned out. We also shared the night with Celia’s unlikely new pals—Brenda Frazier and Shipwreck Kelly.
Angela, you’ve probably never heard of Brenda Frazier and Shipwreck Kelly. At least I hope you haven’t. They got far too much attention as it was, back when they were young and famous. They were a celebrated couple for a few minutes back in 1941. Brenda was an heiress and a debutante; Shipwreck was a star football player. The tabloids followed them everywhere. Walter Winchell invented the obnoxious word “celebutante” to describe Brenda.
If you’re wondering what these sophisticates were doing hanging around my friend Celia Ray, so was I. But pretty soon into that evening, I figured it all out. Apparently New York’s most famous couple had seen City of Girls, loved it, and had adopted Celia as their little accessory—much the same way they bought convertible cars and diamond necklaces on a whim. Evidently, they’d been gamboling about with