City of Girls - Elizabeth Gilbert Page 0,57

that girl around stage in this tiny getup, we are going to have a hit. Men will be lined up for miles. I’d best get started on my rice-water diet soon, or else nobody will be paying attention to my poor little figure at all!”

ELEVEN

I turned twenty years old on October 7, 1940.

I celebrated my first birthday in New York City exactly how you might imagine I would: I went out with the showgirls; we gave the jump to some playboys; we drank rank after rank of cocktails on other people’s dime; we had tumults of fun; and the next thing you know we were trying to get home before the sun came up, feeling as if we were swimming upstream through bilgewater.

I slept for about eight minutes, it seemed, and then woke to the oddest sensation in my room. Something felt off. I was hungover, of course—quite possibly still even officially drunk—but still, something was strange. I reached for Celia, to see if she was there with me. My hand brushed against her familiar flesh. So all was normal on that front.

Except that I smelled smoke.

Pipe smoke.

I sat up, and my head instantly regretted the decision. I lay back down on the pillow, took a few brave breaths, apologized to my skull for the assault, and tried again, more slowly and respectfully this time.

As my eyes focused in the dim morning light, I could see a figure sitting in a chair across the room. A male figure. Smoking a pipe, and looking at us.

Had Celia brought someone home with her? Had I?

I felt a heave of panic. Celia and I were libertines, as I’ve well established, but I’d always had just enough respect for Peg (or fear of Olive, more like it) not to allow men to visit our bedroom upstairs at the Lily. How had this happened?

“Imagine my delight,” said the stranger, lighting his pipe again, “to come home and find two girls in my bed! And both of you so stunning. It’s as though I went to my icebox to get milk and discovered a bottle of champagne, instead. Two bottles of champagne, to be exact.”

My mind still couldn’t register.

Until then, suddenly, it could.

“Uncle Billy?” I asked.

“Oh, are you my niece?” the man said, and he started laughing. “Damn it. That limits our possibilities considerably. What’s your name, love?”

“I’m Vivian Morris.”

“Ohhhh . . .” he said. “Now this makes sense. You are my niece. How disheartening. I suppose the family wouldn’t approve if I ravaged you. I might not even approve of myself if I ravaged you—I’ve become so moral in my old age. Alas, alas. Is the other one my niece, too? I hope not. She doesn’t look like she could be anyone’s niece.”

“This one is Celia,” I said, gesturing to Celia’s beautiful, unconscious form. “She’s my friend.”

“Your very particular friend,” Billy said, in an amused tone, “if one is to judge from the sleeping arrangements. How modern of you, Vivian! I approve heartily. Don’t worry, I won’t tell your parents. Though I’m sure they’d find a way to blame me for it, if they ever found out.”

I stammered, “I’m sorry about . . .”

I wasn’t sure how to finish the sentence. I’m sorry about taking over your apartment? I’m sorry about commandeering your bed? I’m sorry about the still-wet stockings that we’ve hung from your fireplace mantel to dry? I’m sorry for the orange makeup stains that we’ve smeared into your white carpet?

“Oh, it’s quite all right. I don’t live here. The Lily is Peg’s baby, not mine. I always stay at the Racquet and Tennis Club. I’ve never let my dues lapse, though God knows it’s expensive. It’s quieter there, and I don’t have to report to Olive.”

“But these are your rooms.”

“In name only, thanks to the kindness of your Aunt Peg. I just came by this morning to get my typewriter, which, now that I mention it, appears to be missing.”

“I put it in the linen closet, in the outside hallway.”

“Did you? Well, make yourself at home, girlie.”

“I’m sorry—” I started to say, but he cut me off again.

“I’m joking. You can keep the place. I don’t come to New York much, anyhow. I don’t like the climate. It gives me a raw throat. And this city is a hell of a place for ruining your best pair of white shoes.”

I had so many questions, but I couldn’t formulate any of them with my dry and foul-tasting mouth, through the buzzing haze of

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