Celia, he’s married. He’s married to Edna.” I said this a little too loud, and several people—who cared who?—turned to look at us.
“Let’s go outside and get some air, just me and you,” Celia said.
Moments later, we were standing in the frigid March wind. I didn’t have a coat. This was not a warm spring day, after all. I’d even been duped by the weather. I’d been duped by everything.
“But what about Edna?” I asked.
“What about her?”
“She loves him.”
“She loves young bucks, anyhow. She always has one on the side. A new one for every play. That’s what he told me.”
Young bucks. Young bucks like Anthony.
Seeing my face, Celia said, “Think smart! You think that marriage of theirs is legit? You don’t think Edna is still in circulation? A big star like her, controlling all the money? Popular like she is? You think she sits around waiting for that hambone of hers to come home? I should hardly think so! It’s not like she won the sweepstakes with that guy, anyway, cute as he is. So he doesn’t sit around waiting for her, either. They’re continental, Vivvie. That’s how everyone does it over there.”
“Over where?” I asked.
“Europe” was her full answer, as she vaguely waved toward a huge and distant place where all the rules were different.
I felt shocked past all reason. For months, I had suffered from petty envy whenever Anthony flirted with the cute little dancers, but it had never occurred to me to be suspicious of Edna. Edna Parker Watson was my friend—and moreover, she was old. Why would she take my Anthony? Why would he take her? And what would happen now to my precious drumbeat of love? My mind bent in sickening twists of hurt and worry. How could I have been so far off the mark about Edna? And about Anthony? I’d never seen the faintest sign of it. And how had I not noticed that my friend was sleeping with Arthur Watson? Why hadn’t she told me earlier?
Then I had a flash of Peg and Olive dancing in the living room that night to “Stardust,” and remembered how shocked I’d been. What else did I not know? When would I stop being surprised by people and their lust, and their sordid secrets?
Edna had called me an infant.
I felt like one.
“Ah, Vivvie, don’t be a goose,” Celia said when she saw my face. She pulled me into her long arms for a hug. Just when I was about to collapse into her bosom and unleash a river of fretful, drunken, pathetic tears, I heard a familiar and annoying voice at my side.
“I thought I’d pay a call on you two,” said Arthur Watson. “If I’m going to squire two beauties like this around town, I can’t leave you unattended, now, can I?”
I started to pull away from Celia’s embrace, but Arthur said, “Say now, Vivian. No need to stop what you were doing just because I’m here.”
He put his arms around both of us at the same time. Now our embrace was completely contained within his. We were tall women, but Arthur was a large and athletic man—and he easily got the two of us in quite a strong clasp. Celia laughed, and Arthur laughed, too.
“That’s better,” he murmured into my hair. “Isn’t that better?”
In point of fact, something about it was better.
A good deal better.
For one thing, it was warm in their arms. I’d been freezing out there, standing on Fifty-second Street in the icy wind without a coat. The cold was pinching at my feet and hands. (Or maybe—poor me—all the blood had flowed to my lacerated, broken heart!) But now I was warm, or at least partially so. One side of me was pressed against Arthur’s monumentally dense body, and the front of me was glued to Celia’s outrageously soft chest. My face was pressed into her familiar-smelling neck. I felt her move, as she lifted her face to Arthur and began kissing him.
Once I realized that they were kissing, I made a tiny effort—merely out of propriety—to remove myself from their embrace. But only a tiny effort. It was awfully cozy in there, and they felt good.
“Vivvie is a sad little kitten tonight,” said Celia to Arthur, after they had kissed with considerable passion for a good long while, right in my ear.
“Who’s a sad little kitten?” said Arthur. “This one?”
And then he kissed me—without letting go of either of us.