dropped him for your boyfriend,” I said. “He says that when he turns on the light he gets spooked, because you look just like his mother.”
Shirley’s face got red as the girls laughed and catcalled — “Oooh, good one, Kit.”
Dumb move. There went Mrs. Krapansky’s couch.
I grabbed my jacket and on the way out tossed the roses at George to take home to his pregnant wife. If only I’d learned to save my scene-stealing for the stage, maybe I would’ve actually been going somewhere.
Nate waited by the stage door. I couldn’t tell by his face what he was thinking. I’d known Billy’s mood before he said hello, if he was happy or sulky or crazy to see me. Nate’s face was as clean as if he’d just scrubbed his feelings off with a washcloth. He was nothing like his son.
Why was he here? I sucked air into my lungs and stood with my chin up, braced for the hit.
“Billy?” I asked.
“No word,” he said. “He hasn’t shipped out yet.”
I blew out a breath while I slowly pulled on my gloves. The pull of fear eased. I could talk now.
Nate waited while I adjusted each finger. I dressed older now, trying to look mature. Nylons and heels and my hair still pinned up the way I wore it in the show. “All dolled up,” Aunt Delia would’ve said in a disapproving way. I did feel like a doll, painted and false, under his gaze.
He turned and we started walking east down Forty-fifth Street. It was almost eleven o’clock and the streets were still crowded. Every once in a while we had to separate to let a group of happy theatergoers through, then come back together again, like a dance. When I’d arrived at the theater it had been a warm October evening, but now I could feel the chill through my jacket. I’d given my old winter coat to my sister before I left Providence. Muddie had probably already replaced the buttons and sewn velvet on the collar. Unlike me, she planned ahead.
“Lousy play,” he said. “For this you left home?”
“Yeah,” I said. “The bright lights of Broadway.”
Broadway wasn’t looking so good just then. A drunk across the way chose this moment to blow his nose in the gutter.
I wondered what the plan was. A steak on a big white plate would be grand, even if I had to make conversation for an hour or so. If I could get down a couple of bites, it would be worth it.
“So where are we going, Mr. Benedict?” I asked finally, because the silence was driving me nuts.
“Here you are, all grown up in New York. I think you can call me Nate.”
We kept walking, all the way crosstown, passing one restaurant after another. COCKTAILS AND SPAGHETTI blinked in cheerful, lipstick-red neon at me from a window. A man held the door open for a woman, and I heard her laugh as she walked in, her chin buried in a fur collar. I felt a blast of heat and noise. We kept on walking.
I sneaked a look at him. Back in Providence he was called Nate the Nose because his nose had been smashed in a fight when he was younger. It should have wrecked his looks, but it hadn’t. Sometimes the papers called him “dapper gangster Nate the Nose Benedict,” but he wasn’t in the papers much. “I’m just an attorney,” he always told the press. “I’m in business, not rackets.” I wondered if any gangster called himself a gangster. Maybe even a famous mobster like Frank Costello called himself a businessman, for all I knew.
“You ever hear of a taxi? They have them here,” I said after the fourth empty cab had streaked by. I’d never mouthed off to him that way, but I was cold and ticked at the way he expected me to fall in line. We were on a side street now, no restaurants in sight.
“Any minute now we’ll be in the river,” I said. Which, on second thought, was not the right thing to say to a gangster.
He looked at his watch. “Fifteen minutes from Times Square, if you walk fast.”
“Twenty in heels,” I said. “Not bad.”
He stopped in front of an apartment building. I stayed put. “This doesn’t look like a restaurant,” I said.
Instead of heading toward the front door, he motioned to me. There was a black iron gate that led to another door directly to the left. “I want to show you something,” he