Bells of Avalon (5 page)

              “She’s even lovelier in person, isn’t she?”

              “Indeed she is.”               

              “The face of angel. Oh, and look at her precious nose. Just like a little acorn. Oh, what I wouldn’t give to have a little acorn for a nose.  Who does she look like? Don’t tell me—I know it.
The Girl with the Bee-Stung Lips.
”

              “Mae Murray, oh no,” he disagreed, but took a compulsory glance at Katie to check for the resemblance in question. “Oh well could be, but with none of that Teutonic chin. No, she’s much more the face of Esther Ralston.”

              “Oh but
Felix
, she wasn’t a Teuton. Mae was a Hungarian, couldn’t speak a stitch of English until they made her for the talking pictures.”

              “No, no she wasn’t,” he grumbled, “she’s a Block Island Dutch, real name was Akerman? Abrahmsen, maybe.” 

              “Oh that doesn’t sound right. I’m almost sure she’s a—
was
a Hungarian.”

              “Hell, Irene, she’s not dead.”

              “No? I could have sworn she passed years ago—sepsis or blood poisoning…wasn’t it?”

              “Of course not. She plays at Billy Rose’s every other weekend in New York.  You know, the nostalgia club—two blocks down from the one pop owned in ’21.”

              “Oh yes, that is right isn’t it. Well
who
, I wonder, was I thinking of?”

              “Garbo?”

              “Oh no.”

              “Pola Negri?”

              “Oh no,
Felix
, that isn’t it
either
.”

              But Katie knew exactly who they were talking about. She was one of the two women who’d used the second-story bathroom. The one with the vanity and full-length mirror—the blue tiles and—             

“Vilma Banky,” Katie’s words were soft, but clear. 

              They turned strange eyes on her when she interrupted their clever debate. Katie cleared her throat and spoke again.

              “It was Vilma Banky.”

              Irene pursed her lips again and nodded.

              “Yes, yes that’s it,” she said with no touch of doubt. She looked at Katie’s face again, this time with more warmth and less inspection. “You’re right. She does look very much like Esther Ralston. I don’t know how I missed it.” Irene crossed her arms and looked quizzically at her husband. “Now there’s a girl you’d never see dancing past her heyday at the Horseshoe. What is Esther doing these days?”

              “Left the business for theology,” Mr. Kittredge said and yawned. “Yes, she looks very much like Esther Ralston, and has a nose just as tiny as an acorn—but she looks a little pale all the sudden.”

              “Oh, why yes, she
does
,” she held Katie’s face in her hand once again. “Are you feeling alright, dear?”

              Katie nodded, suddenly thankful that she looked more like Esther Ralston than Mary Pickford or Vilma Banky.

              “She’s fine, would rather stay home with her needlework is all,” Danny said. His mouth came close against her ear, his body slanting into her for one brief, taunting moment before he snapped upright.

              “Is that so?” Irene asked.

              “No.  I’m fine,” Katie said, shooing Danny away. 

              “Well let’s be along then.” Felix shrugged and climbed into the driver’s seat.  Danny sprinted past, collapsing into the back seat alongside the two chattering boys.  Katie sighed and felt the woman’s hand touch the small of her back and glide her along to the car.  Suddenly, Irene’s arms came around her in a tight, breathless hug.  Katie stood rigid in the embrace as the Kittredge’s mother clung and palmed the back of head.  To Katie, it lasted forever in the blind spot toward the rear of the car. Katie smelled her acid aroma and hairspray. It seemed it would never end: the sensation of having something done to her.
Best to let it run its course.
The words in her mind were sing-songy like the radio’s jingle from before. 
Best to let it run its course, of course…never do to break away!
So Halo, everybody, Halo
. She clamped her eyes shut as the refrain sang out over and over in her mind.

              “I’m sorry for your father, child. Don’t think I didn’t remember.”

              She didn’t really hear the words at first.  She thought she’d only imagined them, intermixed with the sing-songy voice in her mind.  She looked at Mrs. Kittredge’s face.  Behind her feigned concern was a kind of giddiness—the kind that came when something pretty was purchased at a cheap cost.  Something attractive to lay upon the mantle or tack against the wall. 

              She felt that old needling, prompting her to say something agreeable. Something to say she was grateful for her cooked-up sympathy.  Maybe it was the urging of her father’s voice—the memory, at least, of what it had been.
Give a smile to the nice man, girl, he’s speaking to you—ship -shape or Bristol fashion,
followed by a pat of his hand to the small of her back. A pat that urged her forward into the intimate space of strangers. 
Best to let it run its course, of course, girl.
  Maybe it had always been
his
voice, making a tidemark for her every move, her every word. But today she would say no agreeable words to subdue the awkward air.  Katie narrowed her eyes on Irene and left her to join the boys in the back seat of the car.  

              She found Max fiddling with a yo-yo string between his fingers. Albert sat with his hands rooted in his pockets.  Alfred gave her a glance with his still, brown eyes as she settled into her seat. Max’s eyes were exciting and blue where his brother’s were dull, and the stark difference between them struck her as it never had before.

              “Hiya, Katie.” It was Max with a genuine look where his mother’s had been false.

              “Hello, Max.” 

              “You been to the Riv before?”

              “Yes, many times—with my father.”

              “Your—oh yes, well.”  He cleared his throat and looked down at the string through his hands. “Then—you know it’s pretty dull.  A bunch of windbags walking around in penguin suits.”

              She smiled and turned her face to the window as the car crawled out of Danny’s driveway. She pressed her body to the hard edge of the door and watched blankly toward the passing trees and houses, trying the catch glimpses of the families—outlined and backlit through the windows.

Chapter Seven

Pacific Palisades, California

1949

The Riviera looked like a red castle set against the rolling green golf courses.  The red, heat-caked layers curved around the entryways while Eucalyptus trees stretched in all directions. She liked the outside of it, the way it always looked a bit fantastical. She liked the green golf courses interrupted by creamy divots of sand as if a giant had scooped them out that way. Their party was on the second floor, a section of rooms she’d never been inside. The room was grand with a dozen bronze chandeliers overhead and casement windows looking over an ocean view that reached all the way to Catalina Island.  It was hazy but solid in the distance, and seeing its outline through the faraway dark gave her an eerie feeling.  

              Danny made good on his promise to part ways.  He and the other boys shot from sight, leaving her like a despised little sister.

              “Boys, don’t you want to take Katie along with you?” Irene called after them.

              The brothers looked at one another. Albert shrugged but, Max—the counterpart to his brother’s glumness—gave her a friendly smile. 

              “Oh no, Mrs. Kittredge, she’d much rather stay with you—she told me so,” Daniel said.

              Irene glanced down at her. She had the look that came frequently to mothers outwitted by their children.

              “Is that true, dear?”

              That was all Danny needed, and he was gone with the others.             

Irene pulled her from conversation to conversation while serving trays bounced above her head.  She decided to count, sensing her mind becoming idle enough for the bad thoughts to break through.  She counted in groups of three until she reached fifty-seven…then back to zero.

The conversations were mostly the same, the last note regarding the blonde girl tucked under Irene Kittredge’s arm.
Isn’t that—oh yes well how do you do?
Or better,
What a shame about—
followed by the same fabricated sympathy that she’d received from Max and Albert’s mother only an hour or so before. She glanced through the crowd as the exchanges went on over her head, waiting for her cue to smile and nod.  Between counting, her eyes returned again and again to the dark view of Catalina.  Her remote feeling of worry returned as she stared at the island, her memory trying to recall some crucial detail. Something very important she’d forgotten about the Riviera.

             
Why he’s even more handsome in person
.  Irene was the first to say it, but Katie kept her eyes fixed on the island. 

             
Oh yes, he comes here quite often.
  Another voice.

             
Of course he does
, she thought. 
And when he’s not here— he goes to the parties on Nestle Avenue.
   But the house on Nestle Avenue was empty. Hadn’t she seen so herself? The marble foyer was dark and quiet. It had smelled of sterile disinfectant when they’d taken her to gather her things after the funeral.

She fought to keep her eyes fixed on the little island off the coast. The island, like a friend, trying to warn her of something should have already known.  She saw a glint of rose-colored gold.  He was still across the room, not so close as she had feared.  Still time to get away. He hadn’t seen her yet,
had h
e? She tugged at Irene’s arm and was received by a perplexed look, between giggles. 

              “I need to go.”
              “What?” Irene’s voice flipped on a high pitch.

              “I need to go to the—” Katie looked and saw him moving closer, his eyes looking around the room, “—I need to go to the bathroom,” she said and tugged her arm again. Irene looked down distracted.

              “What?”

              “The bathroom, I need to go.”
              “Well go, darling, there’s nothing stopping you.”

              “I—I can’t.”

He was coming to speak with them.  She released Irene’s arm and bolted. She felt her body collide with another, but she was paces ahead before she heard the sound of shattered crystal and Irene yelling her name on an offended gasp.

Her legs were strong and bare—unrestricted by the nasty second skin of white leggings. But if he hadn’t noticed her before, he’d have seen the slip of a girl with blond hair crashing into a tray of toasting flutes.   She
knew
that, even now, he followed her with his peculiar, long strides.  She heard his voice crooning her name. As she ran, her lungs burning, a horrible thought came to her. Maybe none of this was real—other than in her mind. Perhaps he’d already caught her and done as before. Taken her to a forgotten room—a room with polished tables and chairs stacked upon one another like wooden skeletons.  Maybe she’d seen that obscure outline of Catalina from that room rather than from under Irene Kittredge’s arm.  She thought, even now, she was dying under his weight.

She ran until she found a door that swung open into the night.  She felt a hand grab her dress and pull her back in one brusque motion. Another hand went to her wrist. She felt everything inside collapse and wilt. As her eyes adjusted to the dark, she saw a different pair of hands—not quite a man’s but not a boy’s either.

“You really are crazy, you know that?” he said breathlessly.

              Her eyes looked back and forth over his face until she was certain it was him. 

              “What the hell are you doing?”

              “I—”she stammered.

              “Well?”             

              She yanked her wrist out of his hand.

              “Take your hands off me. Just leave me alone.”

              “Katie, what’s wrong?”

              “Get out of here, Danny!” she screamed. It could have been the first time she’d screamed anything. The words were harsh even to her own ears. 

              He said nothing then turned his palms up in a way that said he should’ve been done with her long ago.

“Whatever you want,” he said.  He walked away with jerky, aggravated steps. 

After he left, a rolling breeze swept over her body—as if to remind her that she was alone. She thought for a frightening moment—that if she dared look down, she’d be wearing the bobbin-lace jumper, patent leather tap shoes, and thick white leggings. One look over her shoulder would reveal the Dancer bobbing in that awful way, a flat cap pinned perfectly to his head.  But when she looked down, she saw only her white dress rustling in the breeze. Looking ahead was the trunk of a palm tree staring dumbly at her. 
Like the one on Nestle Avenue,
the sing-songy voice returned again.  She realized at that moment, it didn’t matter if the Dancer had seen her or not.  Even if he had, he wouldn’t have chased her. Nimble feet didn’t chase. Her little girl’s mind understood that at least. They didn’t run in clomping strides or dance with their own shadows in country clubs. Nimble feet tiptoed and lurked.  They walked in and out of the dark places with soft footfalls.  And when her little girl’s mind grew into a woman’s, she would understand more of why that was true…this unspoken fact that tarried in the minds of women.  What she knew now was only the seedling of what would bloom into harsh truth. The harsh truth a mother could have softened—that is, if she’d had a mother. The Dancer was finished with her—the same way nimble feet were finished with the ground they tread upon.  It was only a flash of thought: a seedling popping prematurely in the soil of her mind. It was a tender, tiny thing—but it was there. For the first time since she’d come to live with the Gallaghers, she felt the numbness of her body subside. She suddenly didn’t mind so much that she was outside—and alone. That was enough for the moment.  The rest was something she’d sort out in her own way and in her own time. She walked towards the highest point she could find.  She would get a closer look at that island in the distance. The same that had whispered a warning to her. She heard again the sound of footsteps behind her, but this time she knew to whom they belonged. She’d seen the distant shape of him leaned stubbornly against a palm tree, watching out for her as she imagined his mother had told him to. She thought of the strange influence Mrs. Gallagher held over son where certain things were concerned. She climbed up a small hill offering a better view of the faraway island.

“What are you looking at?” he asked, finally catching up from behind.

“Come up if you want to see.”

“What? I don’t think we’re supposed to be up there, how high is it anyway?”

“How high does it look?” she replied.

He didn’t answer.  She thought he’d given up and left her in peace, but then she heard the tiny cracklings of rocks and dirt.  He pulled himself beside her, his hair having fallen from its neatly combed pattern. He shot her a crabby look.

“Just couldn’t leave me alone, could you?” she asked. 

He didn’t answer, didn’t say anything at all for several minutes.

“Why are you afraid to be outside?” he finally asked and turned to her. She kept her eyes fixed on the ocean.

“I’m outside now, aren’t I?”

“You know what I mean,” he replied grumpily.

She couldn’t look at him, afraid of what she’d see in his ever-changing turnstile of faces. 

“Have you ever been there?” she asked.

“Hasn’t everybody?”

His body relaxed from the perfect sort of posture he usually carried.  The consistency of his posture was a sore spot for her. She’d been graded against the yardstick of his rigid spine for as long as they’d been set to pose together. 
No slouching Katie! Stand tall like Danny. There you go,
they said as their thick fingers yanked her shoulder blades back and fluffed her dress once again—people like that always had thick fingers.

“
I
haven’t,” she said.

“Well you aren’t missing much. It’s just like over here, except smaller.”

“But it looks so different.”

“How can you tell? It could Alcatraz for all you can see at this distance.”

“I’ve never been there either,” she said looking down. He sighed impatiently and pulled some grass up by the root.  He tossed it roughly over the edge.

“Why the hell do you have to say things like that?” he asked, wiping his dirty hands together.

“Say things like what?” 

“Nothing,” he mumbled.

“How do I
say
things?”

“I don’t know. Like your dog just died, or you’re reading off a script about your dog dying. It drives me crazy.”

Her cheeks grew hot.

“I can’t help that I don’t talk like you or the others.  I’ve never had a dog and I don’t know what Alcatraz is. I don’t understand the things you say most of the time either, but I don’t make fun of you for it.”

“You don’t know what Alcatraz is?”

“No, I told you I don’t.”

“Oh, Katie Webb, I suppose you’ll get it one of these days.”

“Don’t say that to me. I hate when you say that,” she said and pulled her knees into her chest.

“It’s a jail.”

“What’s a jail?”

“Alcatraz, of course. It’s on an island about a mile off the coast of San Francisco.”

“A jail on an island?”

“Yeah, all the bigs go there…Creepy Karpis, Machine Gun Kelly, all of them.”

“Are they murderers?”

“Some I suppose—but mostly robbers and numbers runners.”

“It sounds horrible.”

“It’s just a jail—like any other. I went there once with my dad when I was little and saw it from the wharf.  It isn’t much to look at really. You could probably throw a rock and hit it from the shore.”

“Does it really look like Catalina?” she asked.

“How the hell should I know? I can barely see the thing from out here.”

“But you said you’d been there? What was it like?”

“Why do you want to know?” he asked.             

“I just do. Just
tell
me”

He tilted his head and looked her over.

“I’ll tell you…if you tell
me
what you were running from back there.”

              She was silent as she listened to the sound of the waves washing against the coast. He asked the question again, his voice suddenly disarming.  She focused on the clean ocean sounds then looked at him warily, one eyebrow raised. Danny had a way of getting things out of a person. She had seen him do it a thousand times.  But not tonight.  He seemed to sense that…the same way a gambler knew when to hedge his bets. 

“I think I shot a picture there once.” he said finally.

“You did?”

“Yes,” he said and leaned back, stretching his legs in front of him. “But then again, I really don’t remember. I was only four or so.”

“I don’t see how you couldn’t remember something so beautiful.”

“Christ, Katie, I was only four. It’s just an island like any other and nothing special to talk about.”